Resources, Resource Templates, Prompts, and Completions
Practice this questionWANT TO UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT FIRST?Learn Resources, Resource Templates, Prompts, and Completions
Resources
Resources are application-controlled, readable context. A URI identifies a resource, for example, docs://architecture/overview. Clients can list and read resources; templates expose parameterized URI patterns.
Prompts
Prompts are user-controlled, reusable message templates. For example, a “Review this incident” prompt can accept a required incident ID and a review style as arguments.
Choosing the capability
| Need | Choose |
|---|---|
| An action or live query | Tool |
| Readable reference material or context | Resource |
| A reusable conversation starter | Prompt |
Pagination, subscriptions, and changes
- Return large lists in cursor-based pages.
- Use resource update subscriptions when both sides support the capability.
- When tool, resource, or prompt catalogs change, negotiated list-changed notifications can be used.
- Completion suggestions for prompt and resource arguments can improve the client user experience.
Security note
Access to a resource URI also requires an authorization check. A guessable URI does not grant permission to access the resource.
Adapted from 20_MCP_SERVER.md · “6. Resources, Resource Templates, Prompts, and Completions”. Code examples are study fragments. Difficulty and core labels are editorial estimates; version-specific behavior should be checked against your project.