--- title: "MCP articles and guides — Elva blog · Elva" description: "The Model Context Protocol (MCP) lets AI clients such as Claude and Cursor discover and call the tools a server exposes. 9 guides, newest first." canonical: "https://getelva.ai/blog/tag/mcp" lastModified: "2026-09-02T16:58:18.662Z" --- 1. [Blog](https://getelva.ai/blog.md) 2. MCP # MCP articles and guides The Model Context Protocol (MCP) lets AI clients such as Claude and Cursor discover and call the tools a server exposes. These guides cover what an MCP server is, how it differs from a REST API, how to build and govern one, and what running them for millions of tool calls taught us. 9 posts, newest first · Updated 2026-09-01 [ MCP Aug 31, 2026 MCP logging and observability tools, compared A researched map of how teams actually watch MCP traffic today: the protocol's own shift to OpenTelemetry, the observability platforms that added MCP tracing, and the gap between debugging a server and running one. 8 min read ](https://getelva.ai/blog/mcp-logging-and-observability-tools-compared.md)[ MCP Aug 30, 2026 Tools to build governed MCP servers for agents, compared A researched map of what actually governs an enterprise MCP server: SDKs that write server code, gateways that add auth and rate limits in front of one, and platforms that generate and host a governed server directly. 9 min read ](https://getelva.ai/blog/governed-mcp-servers-for-enterprise-agents.md)[ MCP Aug 30, 2026 Turning a code repository into an MCP server, compared What actually turns a codebase into an MCP server: GitHub's own API server (a different job entirely), OpenAPI-to-MCP generators that need a spec first, code annotation frameworks, and the thin no-spec category. 8 min read ](https://getelva.ai/blog/turning-code-repositories-into-mcp-servers.md)[ MCP Aug 28, 2026 The best MCP tool discovery platforms in 2026 A researched comparison of where AI agents and developers actually find MCP servers today — the official registry, community marketplaces, integration platforms, and packaged hosting — plus where governed private serving fits. 8 min read ](https://getelva.ai/blog/best-mcp-tool-discovery-platforms.md)[ MCP Aug 27, 2026 MCP vs REST: what changes when agents call your API MCP does not replace REST. It changes who the caller is. What that shift means for interface design, auth, error messages, and operations. 4 min read ](https://getelva.ai/blog/mcp-vs-rest-api.md)[ MCP Aug 27, 2026 What is an MCP server, explained for API teams A plain explanation of MCP servers: what the protocol does, how a server maps to your API, and what it takes to run one in production. 5 min read ](https://getelva.ai/blog/what-is-an-mcp-server.md)[ MCP Jul 14, 2026 MCP servers are infrastructure. Run them like it. Weekend demos die on Monday. What we learned running MCP servers for real agent traffic, and what changes when a tool call has an SLA. 8 min read ](https://getelva.ai/blog/mcp-servers-are-infrastructure.md)[ MCP May 22, 2026 23 tools, 4 agents, zero surprises Per-agent activity, tool-level latency, and catching the schema gap before Claude does. 7 min read ](https://getelva.ai/blog/23-tools-4-agents-zero-surprises.md)[ MCP Apr 16, 2026 What 1.2 million agent tool calls taught us about timeouts, retries, and the true cost of a vague error message Ninety days of production MCP traffic in numbers: retry storms, timeout cliffs, and why one ambiguous error string cost more than any outage did. 4 min read ](https://getelva.ai/blog/what-1-2-million-tool-calls-taught-us.md) ALL TOPICS [MCP9](https://getelva.ai/blog/tag/mcp.md) [Governance7](https://getelva.ai/blog/tag/governance.md) [AI Agents5](https://getelva.ai/blog/tag/ai-agents.md) [OpenAPI5](https://getelva.ai/blog/tag/openapi.md) [Contracts4](https://getelva.ai/blog/tag/contracts.md) [Engineering4](https://getelva.ai/blog/tag/engineering.md) [Observability4](https://getelva.ai/blog/tag/observability.md) [Product3](https://getelva.ai/blog/tag/product.md) [Infrastructure2](https://getelva.ai/blog/tag/infrastructure.md) ## Ship notes, monthly One email with what shipped and what we learned. Unsubscribe anytime. ## Ship APIs anything can call Humans, tests, partners, agents. One catalog, one contract, one place. [Sign up free](https://app.getelva.ai/signup) [Read the blog](https://getelva.ai/blog.md)