4 ms·

it's not easier for agents to work with. it's easier for organizations to work with. for agents, they're essentially the same thing - remote endpoints, and in

it's not easier for agents to work with. it's easier for organizations to work with. for agents, they're essentially the same thing - remote endpoints, and instructions on how to call those endpoints. what MCP brings is centralized updating and distribution of the instructions, and a promise that the skill and the REST api won't be out of sync with each other. the one thing that skill.md+REST doesn't solve is how you get that skill.md to somebody else's computer, and how you ship an update to somebody else's computer once they've got a copy of the skill. if that's a problem you need to solve, you can either start inventing skill.md distribution protocols, or you can just use MCP.

boredumb 1mo ago
How is distributing a markdown file the bottleneck?
- tass 1mo ago
  Because it’s something else that’s non-standard between providers.
- stillpointlab 1mo ago
  It is the automatic distribution and automatic update. The questions isn't "how does one download a text file to another persons computer?". It is "how does someone with a skill.md file on their computer discover that a new version of that file is available". This isn't a "bottleneck" but rather a capability (or lack thereof). As you add more and more capabilities, especially ones relevant to enterprise situations like authentication, authorization, governance, etc. then MCP starts to pay off. If you do not need those capabilities, then you do not need MCP. And then you shouldn't use it. But if you do need those capabilities then it might be worth using MCP rather than inventing your own way to do them.
  - boredumb 1mo ago
    I see. In my head it would be something like the agents harness having a list of services it interacts with, reaches out to service.com/agents.md for a fresh copy every so often and uses that to resolve the relevant tool calls.
    - notatoad 1mo ago
      >reaches out to service.com/agents.md for a fresh copy every so often and uses that to resolve the relevant tool calls. that is basically what MCP is. except it answers all the questions that your version handwaves away - how often do you get a fresh copy, how do you describe the relevant tool calls, how are the tools organized, and how does auth work.
      - liquicity 1mo ago
        If that truly is the main selling point - it seems like a shallow moat versus skills + rest..
    - stillpointlab 1mo ago
      Valid. There are many ways to do it. But for enterprise there may be teams, each developing their own way to do it. Then there will be many different ways that it is done throughout the enterprise, which is hard re: governance. Better/easier to adhere to an industry standard which can be audited, especially for enterprises where that is a legal requirement. That isn't a reason you should use it, just an explanation about why someone has to use it.
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
AznHisoka 1mo ago
Maybe I just need more patience, but I took a look at some tools that have MCPs, and their "setup guide" on how to start using the MCP server really gave me brain damage. Is this really easier to work with?
- anon84873628 1mo ago
  For antiquated "enterprise" APIs that were already a mess of legacy cruft, yes. MCP forced vendors to reconsider the ergonomics of their interface.
  - nostrebored 1mo ago
    What do you mean by this? It certainly sounds technical but it seems to not mean anything. MCP has not smoothed over legacy cruft, and it is generally bad at exactly what you’re describing (many unintentionally coupled APIs with unintentional side effects). These require near deterministic trajectories and you’d be better off creating a consumer with a series of well known good patterns with useful results. If you take it a step further you may allow for a common language and keyspace of these well known results and employ dynamic solvers that are entirely agnostic. LLMs have made creating these much easier!
    - anon84873628 1mo ago
      Of course MCP can still be implemented poorly by just making a 1:1 clone of the existing API. But there are also folks who put thought into omitting extraneous fields, combining multiple low-level calls into a single tool that covers a common end-to-end use case, and writing much better documentation. With the political air cover that it is in service of the AI boom. Essentially it gave everyone the opportunity to implement API vN+1.
skybrian 1mo ago
It seems like organizations will mostly want remote access via http and the other flavors of MCP aren’t so useful? Although, I suppose if you install an app locally, it might have an MCP interface.
- cube00 1mo ago
  I guess it's similar to SOAP, it was usually over HTTP but sometimes the alternatives were used (eg. email [1]) [1]: https://www.w3.org/TR/soap12-email/ https://www.w3.org/TR/soap12-email/
esalman 1mo ago
> it's easier for organizations to work with. I can see that. I am developing my first custom agents. I am finding that if I offload some workflow to another agent (e.g. Claude Code), the simplest way to control what it can or cannot do is via an MCP server (which only lets it access tools that I develop/approve myself). I do need that control in the corporate environment. Maybe there are easier ways to do it, just learning and exploring now.
- nevon 1mo ago
  This is how I'm doing it as well, for an internal enterprise platform for agentic workflows. Let's me implement as fine-grained access rules as I want, and gives me somewhere that can hold credentials without exposing them to the agent.
arccy 1mo ago
That would be /llms.txt https://llmstxt.org/ https://llmstxt.org/
jonathanhefner 1mo ago
No need to invent skill.md distribution protocols. Use `/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json` -- see https://github.com/agentskills/agentskills/pull/254 https://github.com/agentskills/agentskills/pull/254. It's already in use in several places (e.g., https://www.mintlify.com/docs/ai/skillmd#skills-discovery-endpoints https://www.mintlify.com/docs/ai/skillmd#skills-discovery-en...) and is supported by `npx skills add`.
nostrebored 1mo ago
Enterprises have been managing thousands of http endpoints for decades now. It is not easier. It would have been easier to have something swaggeresque that lives at the openapi spec layer but that’s not cool and AI. What is not hard to understand is that EVERY MCP UPDATE is almost certainly a breaking change. The versioning story is not as mature. The models using it are different. It is an unuseful fiction that by storing a blob of instructions next to a remote endpoint that things have been made easier.
valicord 1mo ago
Or you can just have a URL that points to skill.md?

boredumb 1mo ago

How is distributing a markdown file the bottleneck?

tass 1mo ago
Because it’s something else that’s non-standard between providers.
stillpointlab 1mo ago
It is the automatic distribution and automatic update. The questions isn't "how does one download a text file to another persons computer?". It is "how does someone with a skill.md file on their computer discover that a new version of that file is available". This isn't a "bottleneck" but rather a capability (or lack thereof). As you add more and more capabilities, especially ones relevant to enterprise situations like authentication, authorization, governance, etc. then MCP starts to pay off. If you do not need those capabilities, then you do not need MCP. And then you shouldn't use it. But if you do need those capabilities then it might be worth using MCP rather than inventing your own way to do them.
- boredumb 1mo ago
  I see. In my head it would be something like the agents harness having a list of services it interacts with, reaches out to service.com/agents.md for a fresh copy every so often and uses that to resolve the relevant tool calls.
  - notatoad 1mo ago
    >reaches out to service.com/agents.md for a fresh copy every so often and uses that to resolve the relevant tool calls. that is basically what MCP is. except it answers all the questions that your version handwaves away - how often do you get a fresh copy, how do you describe the relevant tool calls, how are the tools organized, and how does auth work.
    - liquicity 1mo ago
      If that truly is the main selling point - it seems like a shallow moat versus skills + rest..
  - stillpointlab 1mo ago
    Valid. There are many ways to do it. But for enterprise there may be teams, each developing their own way to do it. Then there will be many different ways that it is done throughout the enterprise, which is hard re: governance. Better/easier to adhere to an industry standard which can be audited, especially for enterprises where that is a legal requirement. That isn't a reason you should use it, just an explanation about why someone has to use it.
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]

AznHisoka 1mo ago

Maybe I just need more patience, but I took a look at some tools that have MCPs, and their "setup guide" on how to start using the MCP server really gave me brain damage. Is this really easier to work with?

anon84873628 1mo ago
For antiquated "enterprise" APIs that were already a mess of legacy cruft, yes. MCP forced vendors to reconsider the ergonomics of their interface.
- nostrebored 1mo ago
  What do you mean by this? It certainly sounds technical but it seems to not mean anything. MCP has not smoothed over legacy cruft, and it is generally bad at exactly what you’re describing (many unintentionally coupled APIs with unintentional side effects). These require near deterministic trajectories and you’d be better off creating a consumer with a series of well known good patterns with useful results. If you take it a step further you may allow for a common language and keyspace of these well known results and employ dynamic solvers that are entirely agnostic. LLMs have made creating these much easier!
  - anon84873628 1mo ago
    Of course MCP can still be implemented poorly by just making a 1:1 clone of the existing API. But there are also folks who put thought into omitting extraneous fields, combining multiple low-level calls into a single tool that covers a common end-to-end use case, and writing much better documentation. With the political air cover that it is in service of the AI boom. Essentially it gave everyone the opportunity to implement API vN+1.

skybrian 1mo ago

It seems like organizations will mostly want remote access via http and the other flavors of MCP aren’t so useful? Although, I suppose if you install an app locally, it might have an MCP interface.

cube00 1mo ago
I guess it's similar to SOAP, it was usually over HTTP but sometimes the alternatives were used (eg. email [1]) [1]: https://www.w3.org/TR/soap12-email/ https://www.w3.org/TR/soap12-email/

esalman 1mo ago

> it's easier for organizations to work with. I can see that. I am developing my first custom agents. I am finding that if I offload some workflow to another agent (e.g. Claude Code), the simplest way to control what it can or cannot do is via an MCP server (which only lets it access tools that I develop/approve myself). I do need that control in the corporate environment. Maybe there are easier ways to do it, just learning and exploring now.

nevon 1mo ago
This is how I'm doing it as well, for an internal enterprise platform for agentic workflows. Let's me implement as fine-grained access rules as I want, and gives me somewhere that can hold credentials without exposing them to the agent.

arccy 1mo ago

That would be /llms.txt https://llmstxt.org/ https://llmstxt.org/

jonathanhefner 1mo ago

No need to invent skill.md distribution protocols. Use `/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json` -- see https://github.com/agentskills/agentskills/pull/254 https://github.com/agentskills/agentskills/pull/254. It's already in use in several places (e.g., https://www.mintlify.com/docs/ai/skillmd#skills-discovery-endpoints https://www.mintlify.com/docs/ai/skillmd#skills-discovery-en...) and is supported by `npx skills add`.

nostrebored 1mo ago

Enterprises have been managing thousands of http endpoints for decades now. It is not easier. It would have been easier to have something swaggeresque that lives at the openapi spec layer but that’s not cool and AI. What is not hard to understand is that EVERY MCP UPDATE is almost certainly a breaking change. The versioning story is not as mature. The models using it are different. It is an unuseful fiction that by storing a blob of instructions next to a remote endpoint that things have been made easier.

valicord 1mo ago

Or you can just have a URL that points to skill.md?