Relationship to MCP

ECP is designed to embrace and extend the Model Context Protocol (MCP). It does not replace MCP.

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What MCP standardizes

• Tool discovery — Servers expose tools with names and schemas.
• Tool invocation — Clients call tools with structured arguments.
• Structured tool outputs — Results are machine-readable.

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What ECP adds

ECP does not redefine tool calling. Instead, it:

• References MCP servers — Contexts declare which servers (by name) an executor can use.
• References MCP tool names — Policies allow or deny specific tools (e.g. jira:issues.search).
• Uses structured argument schemas — Mounts and tool calls use JSON Schema-compatible definitions.
• Bundles permissions and policies — Default-deny tool access, budgets, write controls per executor.
• Adds versioning and packaging — A Context is a versioned, portable manifest (like a container image).

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Layered view

If MCP is the “USB interface” for AI tools, ECP is the “container manifest” that defines the whole execution environment: which tools, which data (mounts), which guardrails (policies), and how executors coordinate.

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Building with both

• Implement or use MCP servers for your data and tools.
• Define ECP Contexts that reference those servers, declare mounts and policies, and orchestrate agents that call MCP tools.

This keeps tool semantics in MCP and execution semantics in ECP.

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Related reading

• Alternatives and comparisons — ECP (Execution Control Protocol) vs other frameworks