What’s the Model Context Protocol(MCP)?

Model Context Protocol is a bit like the Language Server Protocol (LSP) that I have worked with recently. In simplified words, it’s a set of specification that defines how a server communicate to a client. A server can be a web server, and a client could be a Desktop application for example.

The benefit of having protocols is that you can reuse the majority of the code to avoid the M*N integration problem (M server, N client). Essentially, you build the server once, then build up a thin client (think VSCode, Claude Desktop, Cursor).

I have been very hesitate towards the LLM wave, partly because of my prior experience (moving from ML to software engineering). However, I think the application space is now mature enough to actually build something with it. There are so many fuss around LLM/Agents or what so ever, but (surprisingly), the most effective way to learn this is sit down for a few hours and actually build something with it. ## The weather MCP Following the tutorial do build a simple MCP for weather alert, it is relative simple with some decorators.

MCP weather: spawn uv ENOENT

I did run into a little issue when I first spin up the MCP server. It took me a while but the fix is simple.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "weather": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
            ...
      ]
    }
  }
}

The fix for me is to change the command to an absolute path. For some reason Claude Desktop does not find the uv command and gives the cryptic error.

Obisidian

I have been an user of Obsidian, a markdown based editor. I was never a good note taker or religous about cleaning up my notes, so I write a lot of them but I barely spend time to organise them. So, when I think of learning this MCP thing, I ask myself, can I build something that query my own notes?

This would takes: - Building a MCP server for obsidian - A MCP client / plugin for Obsidian (If it does not exist yet, I have no idea now)

Reference

https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/build-with-claude/mcp