From Zero to Shipped: My Journey Building an MCP Server
Six weeks ago, "MCP" didn't mean anything to me. Today, I've shipped tools, published a live website, and learned more about backend engineering — and about myself as a builder — than I expected from a single cohort.
Where I started
I joined NextFlows Academy's Building an MCP for an AI Engine program with a decent grip on the basics, but the Model Context Protocol itself was completely new territory. The idea that an AI assistant could reach out and call real, validated tools — not just generate text — was exciting, but the actual mechanics of it (stdio transport, schemas, tool lifecycles) took real time to click.
What I built
