Module 6 – Model Context Protocol (MCP)

Learning outcomes

Understand MCP clients, servers, tools, resources, prompts, transports, authorization, and trust boundaries.

Architecture

MCP standardizes how AI applications discover and use external capabilities. A host application connects through an MCP client to one or more servers. Servers can expose tools for actions, resources for context, and reusable prompts.

Security design

  • Inspect server provenance, permissions, and tool schemas before connecting.
  • Separate read-only servers from servers that can write or execute.
  • Treat every tool result and external resource as untrusted input.
  • Use scoped credentials, explicit authorization, audit logs, and approval gates.
  • Disable unused tools and never expose unrestricted filesystem or shell access by default.

Lab 6

Connect a trusted read-only MCP server in a test environment. Inventory every exposed tool, document its data access, test malformed input, and write a threat model before enabling any write capability.

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