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 ab