MCP clients can query these endpoints (new vibe term is "invoke tools")
That is almost the entirety of it.
The difference with traditional API endpoints is: they are geared towards LLMs, so LLMs can ask servers to list "tools" and can call these tools at will during execution.
It's a vibe-coded spec for an extremely hype-based space.
After like an hour of searching I finally found the Lifecycle page: https://modelcontextprotocol.io/specification/2025-06-18/bas... and I think it contains the answers I’m looking for. But I feel this should be roughly explained in the first introduction.
Agree that most of the pages feel LLM generated, and borderline unreadable
(Sorry, I know this isn't really a helpful answer)
Yes, technically you could, but you are "supposed" to just use a library that builds the actual endpoints based on the schema for the version of MCP you are using. And only worry about building your tools, to expose them to a LLM, so it can be consumed (LLM function calling, but with lots of abstractions to make it more developer friendly)