Tools & MCP — Curriculum
Tool Design & MCP Integration · 18% of the exam. 6 lessons.
1. Designing Tool Schemas
How to write tool schemas the model will actually call correctly, and why description quality outranks naming.
2. tool_use and tool_result in Practice
The mechanics of the tool_use and tool_result message loop, including error signaling and multi-turn ID matching.
3. MCP Fundamentals: Servers, Clients, Hosts
The core MCP vocabulary — server, client, host — and how these three roles connect in a running system.
4. MCP Primitives: Tools, Resources, Prompts
The three MCP primitives, who invokes each one, and how to pick the right primitive for a given capability.
5. Transport Choice: stdio vs. Streamable HTTP
When to use the stdio transport versus Streamable HTTP for an MCP server, based on trust boundary and deployment shape.
6. Error Handling and Tool Distribution Choices
How to design structured tool error responses and how to choose between a built-in tool, an MCP server, and a skill.