---
title: "Your MCP Roadmap"
description: "Plan the first real connection before you build it."
order: 21
duration: "5 min"
chapter: "05-trusting-your-own-data"
type: lesson
---

## Plan your first real connection

You have connected a hosted connector (the Connectors lesson). The full version — registering your own MCP servers with your own credentials — needs Claude Code, which comes in Chapter 06, with the connections wired up in Chapter 07. But you can plan now. The best MCP integrations solve a real problem: a data source you query constantly, a system you check every morning, a tool you copy-paste data from.

<div class="exercise">
  <div class="callout-label">Try This</div>
  <p>Identify the most valuable data connection for your work. Write a brief spec:</p>
  <p><strong>Data source:</strong> What system holds the data? (QuickBooks, Postgres, Salesforce, Google Sheets...)</p>
  <p><strong>Tools it would expose:</strong> What actions would you want Claude to take? (Query invoices, list customers, check inventory...)</p>
  <p><strong>Questions you would ask:</strong> What are the first three questions you would ask once connected?</p>
  <p>Cornwall Market's spec looks like this:</p>
  <p><strong>Data source:</strong> QuickBooks Online</p>
  <p><strong>Tools:</strong> list_vendors, get_invoices, get_transactions, get_chart_of_accounts</p>
  <p><strong>First questions:</strong></p>
  <p>1. "Which vendors have outstanding invoices over 30 days?"</p>
  <p>2. "Show uncategorized transactions from last week."</p>
  <p>3. "What's our food cost percentage this month vs last month?"</p>
  <p>Keep this spec. You will use it in Chapter 07 when you connect your first MCP server for real.</p>
</div>

> "The gap between L2 and L3 is the gap between Claude knowing your processes and Claude knowing your data. MCP bridges it."

You have skills that encode how your organization works. You have experienced the trust inversion — Claude finding things in your data that you missed, first in an exported file and then across live systems. You have a roadmap for your first MCP connection. In the next chapter, you will install Claude Code and bring your skill to life in the terminal. Then in Chapter 07, you will make the MCP connection real.

## Check your understanding

Answer in your own words — write it down before opening the key. Your tutor grades against the criteria and generates fresh variants on retries.

**Q1.** Write your first-connection spec: the data source you would connect first, three tools it should expose, the first three questions you would ask — and one sentence on why THIS source before any other.

<details>
<summary>Answer key — attempt every question first</summary>

## Answer key

### Q1

**Model answer:** Any coherent spec passes: a real source (the system checked daily), three plausible tools (query/list/report-shaped), three questions they genuinely ask, and a priority argument — highest-frequency pain, or the reference data every other workflow needs.

**Pass criteria:** source + 3 tools + 3 questions all present and mutually consistent; priority justified by frequency/pain, not novelty

</details>


**Next:** [Install Claude Code](/mastering-claude/06-delegation-not-prompting/22-install-claude-code/)