Learn the ecosystem, not just the spec.

Short, opinion-light explainers about MCP, the registry landscape, and how to find and trust servers. Written and maintained by the MCP Atlas community — corrections welcome.

Path AStart with the basicsIf you've never used an MCP server before. ~25 minutes.4 guides →Path BSet up your clientInstall your first server in Claude Desktop, Cline, or a custom client.3 guides →Path CPick servers wiselyHow to read provenance, transports, licenses, and trust signals.3 guides →

Featured · April 2026

A field guide to MCP registries.

Five public registries index MCP servers today, each with different editorial philosophies, schemas, and update cadences. We break down what each one does well, what it leaves out, and how to read the differences when a server appears in some but not others.

Read the field guide14 min · last updated 19 Apr

field guide cover · diagram of registries

All guides

All Foundations Setup Concepts Trust

Foundations3 guides

What is the Model Context Protocol?

A short, plain-language introduction to MCP — what it is, why it exists, and how it relates to tools, agents, and context windows.

Beginner6 min read 02

How registries and marketplaces fit together

An overview of the MCP registry landscape — official registry, community indexes, marketplaces, and how they relate.

Beginner8 min read 03

Finding the right MCP server

A practical checklist for evaluating servers: source provenance, maintainership, transport, scope, and trust signals.

Beginner10 min read

Setup2 guides

Installing an MCP server in Claude Desktop

Walk through editing your config file, restarting the client, and verifying that tools are discovered correctly.

Beginner5 min read 02

Using MCP servers from coding clients

Configuration patterns for editor-side clients — Cline, Continue, and others — including remote and stdio transports.

Intermediate7 min read

Concepts2 guides

Transports: stdio, SSE, and HTTP

Trade-offs between local stdio servers and remote HTTP/SSE servers, and when to choose each.

Intermediate9 min read 02

Authentication and credential handling

Patterns for securely passing API keys, OAuth tokens, and per-session credentials to MCP servers.

Intermediate11 min read

Trust1 guides

Trust, provenance, and what to install

How MCP Atlas surfaces provenance, why we don't rank, and how to read source signals when picking a server.

All levels8 min read

Glossary

The words, plainly.

A short, opinion-free dictionary of MCP terms — the spec ones, the ecosystem ones, and the ones people argue about.

Browse all 48 terms →

MCPModel Context Protocol — an open spec for connecting language models to tools and data sources.

ServerA process that exposes tools, resources, or prompts to a client over MCP.

ClientAn app (Claude Desktop, Cline, etc.) that connects to MCP servers on the user's behalf.

TransportHow the client and server communicate — typically stdio, HTTP, or Server-Sent Events.

RegistryA public index of MCP servers, each with its own editorial scope and update cadence.

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Open the repository github.com/mcp-atlas/guides