Microsoft MCP for Beginners is an open-source learning curriculum that teaches the Model Context Protocol, a way for AI applications to communicate with tools and services. Developers use its cross-language examples to learn how to build MCP clients, servers, and AI workflows. The catalogue instruction guides coding agents through these MCP concepts.
Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to microsoft/mcp-for-beginners. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/mcp-for-beginners/main/AGENTS.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/microsoft/mcp-for-beginnersWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/microsoft/mcp-for-beginners/agents-md)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/microsoft/mcp-for-beginners/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/microsoft/mcp-for-beginners/agents-md/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/microsoft/mcp-for-beginners/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/microsoft/mcp-for-beginners/agents-md.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>What it costs to keep this loaded
Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.03209 | $0.03209 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.01284 | $0.01284 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00642 | $0.00642 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00321 | $0.00321 |
Grade A, and why
mcp-for-beginners AGENTS.md scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 1mo ago.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Nothing flagged
None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 396 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
AGENTS.md
Project Overview
MCP for Beginners is an open-source educational curriculum for learning the Model Context Protocol (MCP) - a standardized framework for interactions between AI models and client applications. This repository provides comprehensive learning materials with hands-on code examples across multiple programming languages.
Key Technologies
- Programming Languages: C#, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Rust
- Frameworks & SDKs:
- MCP SDK (
@modelcontextprotocol/sdk) - Spring Boot (Java)
- FastMCP (Python)
- LangChain4j (Java)
- MCP SDK (
- Databases: PostgreSQL with pgvector extension
- Cloud Platforms: Azure (Container Apps, OpenAI, Content Safety, Application Insights)
- Build Tools: npm, Maven, pip, Cargo
- Documentation: Markdown with automated multi-language translation (48+ languages)
Architecture
- 11 Core Modules (00-11): Sequential learning path from fundamentals to advanced topics
- Hands-on Labs: Practical exercises with complete solution code in multiple languages
- Sample Projects: Working MCP server and client implementations
- Translation System: Automated GitHub Actions workflow for multi-language support
- Image Assets: Centralized images directory with translated versions
Setup Commands
This is a documentation-focused repository. Most setup occurs within individual sample projects and labs.
Repository Setup
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/mcp-for-beginners.git
cd mcp-for-beginners
Working with Sample Projects
Sample projects are located in:
03-GettingStarted/samples/- Language-specific examples03-GettingStarted/01-first-server/solution/- First server implementations03-GettingStarted/02-client/solution/- Client implementations11-MCPServerHandsOnLabs/- Comprehensive database integration labs
Each sample project contains its own setup instructions:
TypeScript/JavaScript Projects
cd <project-directory>
npm install
npm start
What this file has done since we first saw it
Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.
- 1mo ago Changed · -29 tokens per session 6a1d3cef9fac
- 2mo ago First seen · 396 lines · 3,238 tokens per session scan A 5b82ed757909
mcp-for-beginners AGENTS.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository microsoft/mcp-for-beginners (17,609 stars, last pushed 4d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 3,209 tokens to every session, about $0.0128 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.
mcp-for-beginners AGENTS.md compared with instructions from other repositories
| Mod | Type | Stars | Last push | Licence | Scan | Tokens | Works with |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| mcp-for-beginners AGENTS.mdmicrosoft/mcp-for-beginners | Instructions file | 18k | 4d ago | MIT | A | 3,209 | Codex, OpenCode |
| vscode buildNext.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | yesterday | MIT | A | 9,719 | GitHub Copilot |
| next.js AGENTS.mdvercel/next.js | Instructions file | 143k | today | MIT | A | 7,461 | Codex, OpenCode |
| langchain AGENTS.mdlangchain-ai/langchain | Instructions file | 149k | yesterday | MIT | A | 4,680 | Codex, OpenCode |
| vscode oss-third-party-notices.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | yesterday | MIT | A | 5,516 | GitHub Copilot |
| vscode copilot-instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | yesterday | MIT | A | 3,093 | GitHub Copilot |
| deepseek-harness AGENTS.mddeepseek-ai/deepseek-harness | Instructions file | 274k | 2d ago | MIT | A | 4,313 | Codex, OpenCode |