The Architecture of MCP
MCP follows a client-server architecture with four key components
- MCP Host: The AI model requesting data or actions (e.g., Claude, GPT)
- MCP Client: The intermediary service forwarding requests from the AI model to appropriate servers
- MCP Server: Lightweight applications exposing specific capabilities (APIs, databases, files)
- Data Sources: Backend systems including local storage, databases, and external APIs
The data flow works as follows:
- The AI model sends a request (e.g., “fetch token price”)
- The MCP client forwards the request to the appropriate MCP server
- The MCP server retrieves the required data from a database or API
- The response is sent back to the AI model via the MCP client