Happy 2nd birthday, MCP!
I’ve been following the Model Context Protocol since the day it was born.
And I fell in love with it the same way I fell in love with HTTP years ago: a simple, open standard that quietly changes how everything connects. HTTP didn’t care which server or which browser you used. It just gave everyone a shared way to talk. MCP does the same thing for AI: one shared way for an assistant to reach tools, data and services.
On November 25, MCP turns 2. I celebrated the best way I know: by building.
Two years, from launch to standard
In just two years, MCP went from an Anthropic launch to an open standard under the Linux Foundation, adopted by OpenAI and many others.
- Nov 2024: Anthropic launches MCP as an open standard.
- Mar 2025: OpenAI adopts MCP.
- Nov 2025: a new spec release, and the MCP Apps extension is proposed.
- Dec 2025: MCP joins the Linux Foundation’s Agentic AI Foundation.
- Jan 2026: MCP Apps ships as the first official extension.
- Jul 2026: the 2026-07-28 spec moves to a stateless core.
That pace is rare for a protocol. Most standards take years just to agree on the basics.
What’s an MCP app?
MCP lets an AI assistant call external tools. An MCP app goes one step further: the answer comes with its own interactive UI, right inside the chat.
The flow is simple:
- You ask a question in plain language.
- Claude or ChatGPT picks the right tool.
- The MCP server fetches live data.
- You get an answer plus a visual widget.
No new app to install, no new interface to learn. The chat becomes the interface.
The four apps I built
MilanMetroStatus.it
Real-time status of Milan’s metro lines, M1 to M5, right in your chat. Ask “Is the M2 running normally right now?” and you get the live status of each line, plus any network-wide alert for disruptions, strikes or closures.
This one is more than 10 years old. It started as a Telegram bot when I moved to Milan, then became a web portal, an Alexa skill, and now an MCP app. Same problem, new interface every time. MCP is the first one that lets it live inside the assistants people already use.
Available on ChatGPT and Claude.
Visit the landing page.
Scioperi
Every scheduled strike in Italy’s essential public services, searchable from chat. Ask “Any transport strikes in Lombardy next week?” and filter by sector, region and date range.
The data comes from CGSSE, Italy’s official strike commission. The key product decision was scope: cover all essential services, not just transport, and keep v1 read-only. Answer the question first; alerts can come later.
Available on ChatGPT.
Visit the landing page.
Pregnancy Wheel
The classic pregnancy wheel, rebuilt as a chat widget. Ask “My due date is March 12. What week am I in?” and get the current week, trimester and due date, adjusted to your cycle length, with the baby’s size compared to a fruit, week by week.
The idea: take a paper tool everyone recognizes and make it conversational. A friendly calculator, not medical advice.
Available on ChatGPT.
Visit the landing page.
DNS Inspector
A clear DNS lookup without leaving the conversation. Ask “What are the MX records for example.com?” and get A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, NS and SOA records in one readable view, with a reason when a record is missing.
I built it for myself, to scratch an itch I have as a developer. It is now by far my most used MCP app.
Available on ChatGPT and Claude.
Visit the landing page.
What I learned, as a builder and as an IT leader
Start from a small, real problem
The best tools fix everyday annoyances. DNS Inspector is the clearest proof: I built it for my own needs, and today it gets about 100 times the sessions of the other three. The tool you need yourself is often the one other people need too.
Let the protocol do the heavy lifting
With MCP you focus on the problem, not on the integration. Three of my four apps exist only as MCP apps: no web app, no public API. A few years ago, a product without its own interface would have been unthinkable. Now the assistant is the interface.
You don’t need a big budget
All four apps run on one small server. The barrier to shipping something useful has never been lower, and that matters for teams too: small experiments are cheap, so you can afford to run many of them.
The beginning of something bigger
Two years in, MCP feels like HTTP did in the early days: the beginning of something much bigger. The standards that last are the ones that are simple enough for anyone to build on, and open enough that no single company owns the future.
Happy MCP building!