What is MCP, and do I need it for Magento work?

MCP = Model Context Protocol. It's an open spec for plugging external tools (databases, APIs, file systems, browsers) into an AI agent in a structured way — like LSP but for AI capabilities instead of editor capabilities. For Magento: a MySQL MCP server lets Claude run safe read-only queries against your dev database; a Magento Admin REST MCP server lets it call products/{sku} without you copy-pasting tokens; a Cloudflare MCP server lets it bust caches after a deploy. You don't need MCP for day-one Magento work, but past day 30 it is the unlock that turns Claude from a code generator into an agent that can read state and verify its own changes.