Model Context Protocol (MCP)
Project record
Maintained by Model Context Protocol a Series of LF Projects, LLC (Agentic AI Foundation project)61513
The Model Context Protocol is an open protocol for connecting AI applications to external data sources, tools, and workflows through MCP servers and clients. The project publishes the specification, a TypeScript schema with a generated JSON Schema, documentation, and official SDKs in ten programming languages. Anthropic introduced it in November 2024 and donated it to the Agentic AI Foundation in December 2025.3141112
- Documentation: Website and documentation (external site: modelcontextprotocol.io)
- Repository: Specification repository (external site: github.com)
- Documentation: Official SDKs (external site: modelcontextprotocol.io)
- Documentation: Governance (external site: modelcontextprotocol.io)
- License: LICENSE (specification repository) (external site: github.com)
- Release notes: Protocol versioning and current revision (external site: modelcontextprotocol.io)
Availability and license
Overall availability
The specification, schema, documentation, and SDK source code are public. Connecting to a particular MCP server or AI application is governed by that server's or application's own terms.143
Availability is separate from permission: read the license before using or redistributing.
Apache License 2.0 (external site: raw.githubusercontent.com)2
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (external site: raw.githubusercontent.com)2
The specification repository's LICENSE describes a transition from MIT to Apache 2.0: new code and specification contributions are under Apache 2.0, contributions whose authors have not consented to relicensing remain under MIT, and documentation other than the specification is under CC BY 4.0. That repository's README still states MIT. SDK repositories carry their own LICENSE files: the TypeScript SDK uses the same transition text, while the Python and Java SDK LICENSE files reviewed are MIT only. None of these licenses cover external MCP servers, model weights, or hosted services.218910
Component reuse rights
- weights
- Unknown — no complete fact-level rights review
- code
- Terms or license combinations require review
- data
- Unknown — no complete fact-level rights review
- documentation
- Reviewed qualifying license recorded — check scope and conditions
No complete system-rights review is recorded for this release.
Public materials checklist
| Item | Status | Notes and evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Source codeIs the source code publicly readable? | Public | The specification, schema, and documentation are developed in a public repository; each official SDK has its own public repository.14 |
| DocumentationIs user documentation published? | Public | Public documentation site with the specification, architecture and security guidance, and guides for building servers and clients.35 |
| InstallationAre installation instructions or packages publicly available? | Public | Each SDK documents its own installation. For example, the Python SDK documents installing the mcp package with pip or uv and requires Python 3.10 or later.47 |
| Supported platformsAre supported operating systems or hardware documented? | Public | Official SDKs are listed for TypeScript, Python, C#, Go, Rust, and Ruby (Tier 1), Java (Tier 2), and Swift, PHP, and Kotlin (Tier 3); tiers reflect feature completeness, protocol support, and maintenance commitment.4 |
| Release statusAre versioned releases published? | Public | Protocol versions are dated identifiers marking the last backwards-incompatible change; the current version is 2026-07-28. This entry describes the project rather than one revision or SDK release.5 |
What it is useful for
Organization context
Provenance and derivatives
Anthropic introduced and open-sourced MCP on November 25, 2024. On December 9, 2025, Anthropic donated it to the newly formed Agentic AI Foundation under The Linux Foundation; the project's announcement said its maintainer-led governance and enhancement-proposal process would continue unchanged.11121314
U.S. eligibility
Eligible · basis: U.S.-governed project
MCP has been established as Model Context Protocol a Series of LF Projects, LLC, and its governance changes must also be approved by LF Projects, a Delaware series limited liability company. It is a project of the Agentic AI Foundation, a directed fund of The Linux Foundation, which describes itself as a 501(c)(6) nonprofit with a legal postal address in San Francisco, California. Technical governance rests with individual maintainers; seats are not reserved for companies. Eligibility rests on this documented governance, not on the original developer or on contributors' affiliations or nationality.61716151819
Sources
This listing is not an endorsement, a safety assessment, or a federal approval.