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← MCP glossary

What is an MCP client?

Also: MCP clients, model context protocol client

An MCP client is the part of an AI application — an editor, chat app, or agent — that connects to MCP servers and lets the model use their tools.

The client is the consumer side of the Model Context Protocol. It launches or connects to one or more MCP servers, discovers the tools they expose, and mediates the model’s calls to those tools. Each client stores its MCP configuration in its own file and format.

Editors and assistants such as Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, and Zed are all MCP clients. Because each keeps its own config, adding a server everywhere normally means editing many different files.

mcpfold renders each client’s native config from one canonical source, so the same servers appear in every client without per-client hand-editing.

Related

mcpfold is an independent, open-source project. The Model Context Protocol is an open standard; mcpfold is not affiliated with or endorsed by the MCP project.