3 ms·

What are people using MCPs for? I search on youtube and see a lot of videos explaining how MCPs work, but none showing practical uses for a programmer (aside fr

by nomilk 2y ago

What are people using MCPs for? I search on youtube and see a lot of videos explaining how MCPs work, but none showing practical uses for a programmer (aside from getting the weather via cursor).

consumer451 2y ago
I only use one regularly, but I use it a lot. (Supabase) Example use case: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43466434 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43466434
- nomilk 2y ago
  I think I’m starting to see the potential.. So I could MPC cursor to my local Postgres (or, after some practice to build confidence, prod Postgres). Then use cursor to help debug. This sounds risky but very useful if it works as intended!
  - consumer451 2y ago
    AS far as risk, I cannot imagine using an MCP with write capabilities to a DB, the Supabase one is read-only, which is perfect.
  - Xelynega 2y ago
    Is this not just hiding the "complexity" of SQL behind an LLM and hoping for the best? If you know SQL and know what you're trying to find, what can the LLM do quickly that you couldn't just constructing a query to get what you want? Alternatively if you don't know SQL, aren't you never going to learn it if every opportunity you have you bust out an LLM and hope for the best?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - georgeashworth 2y ago
    Yes, I have used that workflow to fix a tricky data corruption issue earlier this week. A buggy feature left DB in invalid state, I described the issue to Claude + Postgres MCP to both query the DB to analyze and then generate SQL scripts to fix, and validation and rollback scripts. Easy enough to do without the tooling... but with the tooling, it took probably a quarter or less of the time.
antoinec 2y ago
I have two that I use a lot: - Postgres one connected to my local db - A browser (Playwright) That way I can ask cursor something like: "Find an object with xxx property in the db, open its page in the browser, fix console errors" And it's able to query my db, find relevant object, open the browser, check logs, fix the code based on errors. Even simpler stuff: - copying pasting a broken local url in cursor, and asking it to fix all console errors. Works really well. - or when you have a complex schema, and need to find some kind of specific record, you can just ask cursor "find me a user that has X transactions, matches Y condition, etc..". I found it much faster than me at finding relevant records
knowaveragejoe 2y ago
I mainly use simple integrations: - fetch, essentially curl any webpage or endpoint - filesystem, read(and occasionally write) to local disk - mcp-perplexity, so I can essentially have Claude sample from perplexity's various models and/or use it for web search. Somewhat superseded by Claude's own new web search capability, but perplexity's is generally better.

by nomilk 2y ago

What are people using MCPs for? I search on youtube and see a lot of videos explaining how MCPs work, but none showing practical uses for a programmer (aside from getting the weather via cursor).

consumer451 2y ago

I only use one regularly, but I use it a lot. (Supabase) Example use case: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43466434 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43466434

nomilk 2y ago
I think I’m starting to see the potential.. So I could MPC cursor to my local Postgres (or, after some practice to build confidence, prod Postgres). Then use cursor to help debug. This sounds risky but very useful if it works as intended!
- consumer451 2y ago
  AS far as risk, I cannot imagine using an MCP with write capabilities to a DB, the Supabase one is read-only, which is perfect.
- Xelynega 2y ago
  Is this not just hiding the "complexity" of SQL behind an LLM and hoping for the best? If you know SQL and know what you're trying to find, what can the LLM do quickly that you couldn't just constructing a query to get what you want? Alternatively if you don't know SQL, aren't you never going to learn it if every opportunity you have you bust out an LLM and hope for the best?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- georgeashworth 2y ago
  Yes, I have used that workflow to fix a tricky data corruption issue earlier this week. A buggy feature left DB in invalid state, I described the issue to Claude + Postgres MCP to both query the DB to analyze and then generate SQL scripts to fix, and validation and rollback scripts. Easy enough to do without the tooling... but with the tooling, it took probably a quarter or less of the time.

antoinec 2y ago

I have two that I use a lot: - Postgres one connected to my local db - A browser (Playwright) That way I can ask cursor something like: "Find an object with xxx property in the db, open its page in the browser, fix console errors" And it's able to query my db, find relevant object, open the browser, check logs, fix the code based on errors. Even simpler stuff: - copying pasting a broken local url in cursor, and asking it to fix all console errors. Works really well. - or when you have a complex schema, and need to find some kind of specific record, you can just ask cursor "find me a user that has X transactions, matches Y condition, etc..". I found it much faster than me at finding relevant records

knowaveragejoe 2y ago

I mainly use simple integrations: - fetch, essentially curl any webpage or endpoint - filesystem, read(and occasionally write) to local disk - mcp-perplexity, so I can essentially have Claude sample from perplexity's various models and/or use it for web search. Somewhat superseded by Claude's own new web search capability, but perplexity's is generally better.