What are logging and progress notifications in MCP?

Logging and progress notifications are mechanisms that let MCP servers send real-time feedback to clients during long-running tool operations. Without them, users see nothing while a tool runs and cannot tell if the operation is working or has stalled. With notifications enabled, users get progress bars, status messages, and detailed logs showing exactly what is happening behind the scenes. These features are implemented through the Context object that the Python MCP SDK automatically provides to tool functions when they declare a context parameter.