How Anthropic Builds AI Agents: Claude, MCP, and the Agent SDK Explained

Anthropic takes a model-first approach to AI agents, offering Claude as a reasoning engine paired with open-source tools rather than a single packaged product. Developers can extend Claude's capabilities through a Tool Use API, where the model identifies the right tool, formats inputs, and pauses while the application executes the action and returns results. To eliminate the need for custom integrations, Anthropic introduced the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard that lets any compatible agent connect to data sources and tools through a unified interface. The Claude Agent SDK provides a ready-made framework for managing the planning, looping, and error-handling logic that makes agents work, and it is the same architecture underlying Claude Code, an autonomous coding assistant. Computer Use, currently experimental, extends this further by letting Claude interact with software visually, mimicking mouse and keyboard input on standard user interfaces.
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