Architecting Agentic Systems and Tools with Claude and MCP

Course Overview

Modern artificial intelligence is transitioning from conversational interfaces to autonomous, tool-using agentic systems. This course offers an in-depth exploration of how to design, build, and deploy production-grade AI agents using Anthropic's Claude models, the Claude Developer Platform, and the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Through technical discussions and real-world case studies directly from Anthropic's engineering, research, and product teams, you will understand the theoretical foundations and hands-on practices behind state-of-the-art AI systems. You will explore advanced prompt engineering, protocol-driven tool connectivity, multi-agent orchestrator patterns, and autonomous software development with Claude Code.

What You'll Learn

• Foundations of Prompt Engineering: Structure complex prompts, guide extended thinking and reasoning, handle alignment nuances, and eliminate model hallucinations.
• The Model Context Protocol (MCP): Understand the open standard connecting AI systems to external data stores, developer tools, and enterprise APIs.
• Autonomous Multi-Agent Architectures: Design orchestrators, subagents, tool-calling pipelines, and parallelized MapReduce workflows with the Claude Agent SDK.
• Context Engineering & Memory: Manage token windows, state persistence, retrieval pipelines, and error-recovery routines.
• Agentic Coding Workflows: Leverage Claude Code, terminal-native interfaces, CLAUDE.md context files, slash commands, and IDE integrations like Cursor.
• Evaluation & Agent Diagnostics: Analyze failure modes, evaluate task progression, and draw architectural lessons from complex autonomous experiments.

Prerequisites

• Proficiency in software engineering with languages such as TypeScript/JavaScript or Python.
• Basic understanding of REST APIs, terminal environments, and command-line interfaces.
• Familiarity with foundational Large Language Model (LLM) concepts such as tokens, temperature, and system prompts.

Tools & Technologies

• Claude 3.5 & Claude 4 Models: Sonnet, Haiku, and Opus reasoning engines.
• Model Context Protocol (MCP): Standardized protocol specifications, SDKs, and community servers.
• Claude Code & Agent SDK: Command-line developer agent, scripting hooks, and agent orchestration tooling.
• Cursor & VS Code: Modern AI-assisted development environments and background agents.

Course Structure

The curriculum is structured into four focused chapters:

1. Prompt Engineering & Frontier Reasoning with Claude: Deep dive into steering frontier models, formatting context, and eliciting step-by-step reasoning.
2. The Model Context Protocol (MCP): Unpacking the universal connector for AI tools, local and remote server integration, and open-source standards.
3. Designing Autonomous & Multi-Agent Architectures: Engineering resilient workflows, orchestrator-worker dynamics, tool unhobbling, and long-horizon memory.
4. Agentic Coding with Claude Code: Mastering terminal-driven software development, context files, automated testing, and developer productivity.