Microsoft has added Model Context Protocol (MCP) support to Visual Studio, its flagship integrated development environment (IDE), in an effort to allow developers to connect their AI agents to tools and services available as MCP servers from directly within the IDE.

MCP, which was introduced by Anthropic in November last year, is an open protocol that enables AI agents within applications to access external tools and data to complete a user request using a client-server mechanism, where the client is the AI agent and the server provides tools and data.

Agentic applications, which can perform tasks without manual intervention, have caught the attention of enterprises, as they allow them to do more with constrained resources.

In the case of Visual Studio, the IDE acts as the MCP client and connects to the required tools provided by MCP servers.

The protocol itself defines the message format for communication between clients and servers, which includes tool discovery, invocation, and response handling.

Boosting developer productivity and integration flexibility

Adding MCP support to Visual Studio, according to Stephanie Walter, analyst at HyperFRAME Research, will boost developer productivity and integration flexibility.

“MCP acts like a secure ‘universal adapter’ for connecting AI agents (like Copilot) to external tools, databases, code search engines, or deployment pipelines, so there are no more one-off integrations for every service,” Walter said.

“MCP helps connect to internal company tools securely, meaning that enterprise users can blend public AI advancements with proprietary processes while keeping sensitive data inside company boundaries,” Walter added.

Developers can leverage the MCP integration in Visual Studio, Walter said, by, for example, using the AI assistant in the IDE to query internal bug tracking systems, automate repetitive testing tasks across custom infrastructure, or fetch metrics from production databases, without switching context or custom scripting.

Support for both local and remote MCP Servers

Microsoft said that Visual Studio supports connections to both local and remote MCP servers, and developers can configure the connections via the .mcp.json file.

Developers have the flexibility to set up MCP servers by manually editing the configuration file or through the GitHub Copilot chat interface within Visual Studio, the company explained in its documentation.

Additionally, there’s an option for quick, one-click installation directly from the web, bypassing the need for manual configuration.

In order to provide governance and security, the MCP server setup comes in with built-in administrative oversight policies as well as support for single sign-on (SSO) and OAuth authentication.

Walter sees the addition of these features as Microsoft’s way easing access to MCP via the IDE.

“Visual Studio builds in a first-class UX for MCP, with GUI-driven server management and integrated flows for authentication, making MCP approachable for both individual coders and large teams,” Walter said.

“As a result, you can  expect a rapid expansion of MCP-enabled tools and servers from the open-source and enterprise community, with new automations and AI-powered developer experiences,” Walter added.

MCP Servers are generally not secure

Although MCP adoption is picking up speed, nearly all MCP client providers and any vendor who has added support for MCP, including Microsoft, warns users of its inherent security risks.

A research report from security firm Pynt, which surveyed at least 281 MCP configurations, showed that MCPs are inherently vulnerable.

“MCPs are designed to be powerful, flexible, and modular. That makes them excellent tools for chaining actions across plugins and APIs, but also uniquely dangerous. The core issue isn’t any single plugin, but the combination of many,” the researchers wrote in the report.

The report further points out that, while Pynt was analyzing the configurations, it discovered that a single crafted Slack message or email could trigger background code execution with zero human involvement.