mcp-integration

name	mcp-integration
description	Help a learner give an agent tools through the Model Context Protocol (MCP) — both client-side MCP and Foundry Hosted MCP tools. Use when connecting an agent to an MCP server (e.g. the GitHub MCP server), adding a remote tool, or reasoning about MCP approval/governance.

MCP integration

Guidance for adding tools to an agent via the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Guardrails (always apply)

• Terminology: MCP, Hosted MCP tools (Foundry-managed), Microsoft Learn MCP server.
• Client-side MCP uses MCPStreamableHTTPTool from the current agent-framework surface. The old top-level HostedMCPTool symbol is gone — hosted tools are configured through the Foundry hosted-tool types.
• Secrets (PATs, tokens) come from .env only. In this course the GitHub MCP server is passed a Bearer PAT via headers read from GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN — never hardcode it.

Concepts a learner should grasp

1. Why MCP: one open protocol lets an agent discover and call tools hosted anywhere, instead of bespoke per-tool integrations.
2. Client MCP vs Hosted MCP: client-side, your process connects to an MCP endpoint and executes tool calls; Hosted MCP runs the connection inside Foundry with managed identity, approvals and observability.
3. Approval workflows: hosted MCP tools can require human approval before a tool runs — important for governance in production (covered in Lesson 5).

Worked example in this repo

• lesson-2-agent-development/task-recommendation-agent.py connects an agent to the remote GitHub MCP server as a tool (Lesson 1 Scenario 2), passing a Bearer PAT via headers. Use it as the reference implementation.

How to help

• Start from task-recommendation-agent.py and adapt the MCP endpoint / headers.
• For hosted/enterprise scenarios, direct the learner to lesson-5-hosted-agents-production/ for the approval-workflow and governance discussion.
• Confirm the target MCP server URL and required auth before writing code.

Validate

• python -m py_compile <file>.py.
• The agent should list/call at least one MCP tool and return a grounded answer.

References

• lesson-2-agent-development/README.md (sample catalog), lesson-5-hosted-agents-production/README.md