Build Your First MCP Server in 30 Minutes: A Practical Guide for Salesforce Developers

Model Context Protocol (MCP) is one of those technologies that sounds abstract until you build something with it. Then it clicks: it's a standardized way for AI agents to call external tools, with a governance layer that lets you control exactly which tools the agent can access. If you're a Salesforce developer working with Agentforce, MCP matters because it replaces one-off REST integrations with a protocol that's consistent across tools. You register a server, pick the tools you want, and they show up as agent actions — managed the same way as your Flows and Apex actions. In this guide, I'll walk through building a working MCP server from scratch, connecting it to Agentforce, and explaining the governance patterns that make it production-ready. The server itself is pure TypeScript — nothing Salesforce-specific — so the skills transfer to any MCP-compatible agent platform. What MCP Actually Is (In 60 Seconds) MCP is an open protocol — originally created by Anthropic — that defines how