MCP for Developers — building your first server

Capabilities

• Define typed tools with JSON-schema input contracts
• Expose resources (read-only data the model can fetch by URI)
• Offer prompt templates the client can surface to users
• Handle request/response over stdio or SSE transports

Install

npm i @modelcontextprotocol/sdk
# or
pip install mcp

Configuration

# Minimal TypeScript server
import { McpServer } from '@modelcontextprotocol/sdk/server/mcp.js';
import { StdioServerTransport } from '@modelcontextprotocol/sdk/server/stdio.js';
import { z } from 'zod';

const server = new McpServer({ name: 'hello-mcp', version: '0.1.0' });

server.tool('greet',
  { name: z.string().describe('who to greet') },
  async ({ name }) => ({ content: [{ type: 'text', text: `Hello, ${name}.` }] })
);

await server.connect(new StdioServerTransport());