---
type: Glossary Term
title: "Elicitation"
description: "Elicitation (elicitation/create) is a capability in the Model Context Protocol (MCP) that lets an MCP server pause mid-execution and ask the human user—via the client host—for structured additional information validated against a flat JSON Schema, or direct the user to an external URL for out-of-band confirmation."
resource: "https://agenticweb.wiki/terms/elicitation/"
tags: ["glossary", "act"]
status: stable
generated: { by: agenticweb-builder/1.0, at: 2026-10-23T00:00:00Z }
verified: { by: process:agenticweb-engine, at: 2026-10-23T00:00:00Z }
stale_after: 2026-11-22T00:00:00Z
sources:
  - id: ref-1
    resource: "https://modelcontextprotocol.io/specification/2026-07-28/index"
    last_modified: 2026-07-28T00:00:00Z
---

# Elicitation

**Elicitation** (`elicitation/create`) is a capability in the **Model Context Protocol (MCP)** that lets an MCP server pause mid-execution and ask the human user—via the client host—for structured additional information validated against a flat JSON Schema, or direct the user to an external URL for out-of-band confirmation. Unlike OAuth authorization (which grants credentials before or outside a tool call), elicitation gathers task-specific runtime parameters (such as confirming a deployment target or choosing among options) without forcing the model to guess. Used by: mcp.

# Knowledge Graph

* **Related standards**: [Model Context Protocol](/okf/protocols/mcp.md)

[^ref-1]: https://modelcontextprotocol.io/specification/2026-07-28/index (https://modelcontextprotocol.io/specification/2026-07-28/index)