What are MCP Bundles or MCPBs?

At this point, you are likely aware of the Model Context Protocol, or MCP. MCP allows your AI agents to work with external applications, data sources, and so on during an agentic session.

This is a rapidly evolving topic, and only during a year, a lot of things have happened. One example is the new "standard", called MCP Bundle or MCPB. Previously, these were called "DXT" for Desktop Extensions.

What is an MCPB? It allows you to bundle (hence the name) MCP servers for distribution, making it easier for AI agents to learn about available functionality. OpenAI/Microsoft and Anthropic already support this new format.

Technically, they are zip archives containing a local MCP server and a manifest.json file that describes the server and its capabilities. The MCP server is an application that the AI system can call to execute pre-defined functionality.

Hope this helps!