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Glossary

MCP Tool Definition

Reviewed 9 April 2026 Canonical definition

An MCP tool definition is the machine-readable schema that describes a capability an MCP server exposes to AI clients — including the tool's name, description, input parameters, and type constraints. Clients use tool definitions to understand what actions are available and to construct valid call payloads. Poorly specified tool definitions are a common source of misuse and prompt injection vulnerabilities.