Docker, a leading provider of containers for application development, is set to launch a new Model Context Protocol (MCP) Catalog and Toolkit, designed to simplify the development of agentic applications. The move is expected to address significant challenges faced by developers when building out AI-powered applications that can perform tasks without manual intervention.

The MCP, an open protocol released by Anthropic in November last year, enables AI agents inside applications to access external tools and data to complete user requests. However, without a centralized marketplace and management tools, developers have struggled to connect disparate data sources and tools with large language models (LLMs), a crucial requirement for agentic applications.

Docker's MCP Catalog is expected to serve as a marketplace for discovering and publishing new tools, while the Toolkit will help reduce the management complexity of MCP servers. According to Docker executives, the current experience of MCP is "not production-ready — yet," with discovery being fragmented, trust being manual, and core capabilities like security and authentication being patched together with workarounds.

The Catalog, which has partnered with several companies including Stripe, Elastic, and Heroku, will contain over 100 verified tools at launch, providing developers with a trusted and secure hub for discovering MCP servers. Paul Chada, co-founder of DoozerAI, an agentic digital worker platform, believes the Catalog will help developers find trusted or verified tools, reducing the risk of security breaches.

The MCP Toolkit, on the other hand, is designed to simplify the process of running and managing MCP servers securely. It offers features such as one-click deployment from Docker Desktop, built-in credential management, containerized isolation, a Gateway Server, and a dedicated command line interface (CLI). According to Chada, the Toolkit solves key developer challenges, including environment conflicts, security vulnerabilities, and complex setup requirements.

Industry experts believe that Docker's rivals, such as Kubernetes, will also add similar capabilities soon, and cloud service providers will start offering something similar to the Catalog and Toolkit as MCP's popularity grows. Moor Insights and Strategy's principal analyst Jason Andersen notes that Docker is probably the first to try and build a centralized place to discover tools related to MCP, which is currently non-existent.

Both the Catalog and Toolkit are expected to be made available in May, although pricing details have not been finalized. As agentic applications continue to gain traction among enterprises, Docker's new offerings are poised to play a significant role in simplifying the development process and unlocking the full potential of AI-powered applications.

With the launch of the MCP Catalog and Toolkit, Docker is cementing its position as a leader in the application development space, providing developers with the tools they need to build innovative, AI-driven applications. As the adoption of agentic applications continues to grow, it will be interesting to see how Docker's new offerings shape the future of AI development.