Build Your First MCP Server (and Client)

Part 5 of 6 — ← Part 4: MCP vs Everything Else A guided minimal lab — one eCommerce server, one client, and a complete MCP example you can inspect end to end. Parts 1 through 4 covered the mental model — what MCP is, how the request flow works, where it fits in the stack. This part builds the thing. This is a guided minimal lab — the smallest complete MCP system that shows how a client connects, how a server exposes capabilities, and how the protocol exchange actually works in practice. Full runnable code and local setup instructions are in the GitHub repository . This article explains why things are built the way they are. Full source on GitHub: the Part 5 folder includes server.py , client.py , a data seed script, and a README with complete local setup instructions. → github.com/gursharanmakol/part5-order-assistant Try it in three steps Clone the repo and run bash run.sh Start Inspector with npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector python server.py Add the server to Claude Desktop and ask