MCP and AI basics
MCP client
The component inside a host that holds the connection to a single MCP server. A host with three connected servers runs three clients.
An MCP client is the part of an AI application that holds the connection to one MCP server. When you add three servers to an assistant, the application runs three clients, each speaking to its own server. The client handles the handshake, learns which tools the server offers, forwards the model's tool calls and passes the results back.
People rarely see the client as a separate thing. In practice 'the client' is the assistant you use: Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Gemini CLI or Claude Code, each of which includes MCP client support. What differs between them is which transports they accept (some web apps only take remote servers) and how they ask you to approve tool calls.
When a server's documentation says it 'works with any MCP client', check the transport. A local stdio server needs a desktop or terminal client; a remote server can be added to web clients too. The installation guides in the directory walk through the main clients one by one.