MCP Academy · Lesson

The Initialize Handshake

How client and server agree on version and features.

First Words Matter

Before any tool runs, client and server must meet. That opening exchange is the initialize handshake, and nothing else happens until it finishes.

The handshake always starts with the client sending an initialize request. The server stays quiet and waits to be greeted before it replies.

{"jsonrpc": "2.0", "id": 0, "method": "initialize"}