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0 pointssanderjd11mo ago0 comments

At that point, what is the benefit of MCP over just what we've been doing for decades of putting services behind network-accessible APIs?

0 comments

lsaferite11mo ago

Benefit: A standard and purpose driven protocol for connecting agents (MCP Host/MCP Clients) to tools, resources, and prompts (MCP Server) that also exposes LLM services to said MCP Servers.

The alternative you suggest is manually integrating each set of tools or data?

Or maybe there's some misunderstanding about MCP? MCP currently has 2 transports, stdio and HTTP+SEE. The second one is, in fact, a "network-accessible API" as you call out.

sanderjdOP11mo ago

No, the alternative I suggest is "can't agents figure out how to use existing kinds of APIs if they are documented well?". I think the answer is that in the current state of the art, it's very useful to give them a nudge to help them along.

But I feel like eventually I should be able to publish an API spec or a well documented interface / protocol / whatever my programming language calls it, and an agent should be able to grok that and use it without a separate protocol.

lsaferite11mo ago

Sure, "eventually" you'll be able to point an agent at an arbitrary API and have it figure things out. We have a ways to go before we get there, but we will get there.

1 more reply

AlexCoventry11mo ago

Having a robot perform increasingly sophisticated tasks in your development environment still seems like a win in certain circumstances.

sanderjdOP11mo ago

So it is only for software developers?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

lsaferite11mo ago

Benefit: A standard and purpose driven protocol for connecting agents (MCP Host/MCP Clients) to tools, resources, and prompts (MCP Server) that also exposes LLM services to said MCP Servers.

The alternative you suggest is manually integrating each set of tools or data?

Or maybe there's some misunderstanding about MCP? MCP currently has 2 transports, stdio and HTTP+SEE. The second one is, in fact, a "network-accessible API" as you call out.

sanderjdOP11mo ago

lsaferite11mo ago

Sure, "eventually" you'll be able to point an agent at an arbitrary API and have it figure things out. We have a ways to go before we get there, but we will get there.

1 more reply

AlexCoventry11mo ago

Having a robot perform increasingly sophisticated tasks in your development environment still seems like a win in certain circumstances.

sanderjdOP11mo ago

So it is only for software developers?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse