Elicitation

Elicitation means the process of getting or producing something, especially information or a reaction.

Why does that matter for MCP then? The official docs have the following to say:

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) provides a standardized way for servers to request additional information from users through the client during interactions. This flow allows clients to maintain control over user interactions and data sharing while enabling servers to gather necessary information dynamically.

So, what does that mean? It means, for some reason, the server finds it needs to involve the client additionally to ask the user for more information. Now the purpose is clearer, right?

Okay, imagine the following: as a user, you’re trying to book a holiday trip, and the date you searched for isn’t available. There’s a way to improve that situation through using elicitation – namely, instead of just saying as a server that said trip isn’...