Tutorial: MCP Python SDK

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The MCP Python SDK^{View Repo} helps developers build applications (clients and servers) that talk to each other using the Model Context Protocol (MCP) specification. It simplifies communication by handling the low-level details like standard message formats (Abstraction 0), connection sessions (Abstraction 1), and different ways to send/receive data (transports, Abstraction 2). It also provides a high-level framework, FastMCP (Abstraction 3), making it easy to create servers that expose tools (Abstraction 5), resources (Abstraction 4), and prompts (Abstraction 6) to clients. The SDK includes command-line tools (Abstraction 8) for running and managing these servers.

flowchart TD
    A0["MCP Protocol Types"]
    A1["Client/Server Sessions"]
    A2["Communication Transports"]
    A3["FastMCP Server"]
    A4["FastMCP Resources"]
    A5["FastMCP Tools"]
    A6["FastMCP Prompts"]
    A7["FastMCP Context"]
    A8["CLI"]
    A1 -- "Uses MCP Types" --> A0
    A1 -- "Operates Over Transport" --> A2
    A2 -- "Serializes/Deserializes MCP..." --> A0
    A3 -- "Uses Session Logic" --> A1
    A3 -- "Manages Resources" --> A4
    A3 -- "Manages Tools" --> A5
    A3 -- "Manages Prompts" --> A6
    A8 -- "Runs/Configures Server" --> A3
    A5 -- "Handlers Can Use Context" --> A7
    A4 -- "Handlers Can Use Context" --> A7
    A7 -- "Provides Access To Session" --> A1
    A7 -- "Provides Access To Server" --> A3

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Table of contents

• CLI (mcp command)
• FastMCP Server (FastMCP)
• FastMCP Resources (Resource, ResourceManager)
• FastMCP Tools (Tool, ToolManager)
• FastMCP Prompts (Prompt, PromptManager)
• FastMCP Context (Context)
• MCP Protocol Types
• Client/Server Sessions (ClientSession, ServerSession)
• Communication Transports