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MCP is dead?

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Re: MCP is dead?

#111

Post by jimbokun »

827a wrote: post #68
jimbokun wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You failed to describe what value the MCP protocol provides. If all of these companies spent equivalent time writing a CLI for agents to consume as they spend on MCP servers, would they be any worse off in terms of agents being able to interact with their products?

Yes, in the same way a programming language would be worse off if they focused all of their effort on building an implementation instead of a language specification. You could literally, deterministically, zero AI, code-gen a CLI from an MCP specification, just like you can with an OpenAPI specification. I'm sure tools exist that do this. So if you want a CLI, there it is. But the problem with a CLI is that it requir…

So the permissions model h is a the main advantage MCP has over CLIs?

Re: MCP is dead?

#112

Post by tlogan »

mxstbr wrote: post #22

I run the team at OpenAI that's responsible for the ChatGPT App Store, Codex plugins, and all things MCP. The thing that all these "MCP is dead" posts are missing is that whether or not MCP is used as a transport protocol is actually completely irrelevant. The reason MCP isn't dead is because practically ~every company on the planet is building an MCP server. I know this because we interact with all of them. Most of…

I would bet that MCP is going to die.

The main reason is that it adds another layer (and human) that can, and probably will, get out of sync with the real-world implementation, whether that implementation is an API, web, or a CLI.

AI should not be using a protocol or set of instructions that is different from what humans have access to (know and use).

Sure, companies want to expose MCP servers because it is the cool thing to do right now.

So the current situation is basically that I used Claude to write an MCP server on top of our API. And then I need to occasionally tell it update it match the public doc.

And my reaction is: really? It is not like our API docs are not public. Claude Code created our MCP server with zero instructions beyond what is publicly available. I just told it to read the docs from the net.

So MCP feels more like a temporary workaround for current model limitations.

Re: MCP is dead?

#113

Post by _puk »

2024. Oh woe, I have to scrape everything, why don't companies just give me an API to consume what I need.

2026. Oh woe, the MCP that all the companies are giving me isn't ideal.

2028? oh woe, the CLI that calls the REST API, that calls the MCP that all the companies are giving me..

Re: MCP is dead?

#114

Post by sevenzero »

julianlam wrote: post #82
mxstbr wrote: post #22

I run the team at OpenAI that's responsible for the ChatGPT App Store, Codex plugins, and all things MCP. The thing that all these "MCP is dead" posts are missing is that whether or not MCP is used as a transport protocol is actually completely irrelevant. The reason MCP isn't dead is because practically ~every company on the planet is building an MCP server. I know this because we interact with all of them. Most of…

> The reason MCP isn't dead is because practically ~every company on the planet is building an MCP server. I know this because we interact with all of them. Wow if that's not an echo-chamber comment I don't know what is.

Yup agreed, this reads like massive coping...

Re: MCP is dead?

#115

Post by nostrebored »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #70
dnautics wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i mean you can surface an openapi schema too.

MCP is more than is more than tools. Tools is one of three major features: prompts[0] and resources[1] being the other two. Prompts are effectively "server delivered skills" which are are quite powerful because it solves a distribution and synchronization problem. It also allows server materialization and dynamic construction of skills. MCP also has a few other under utilized mechanisms: elicitation[2] on the client…

this is bad. Anyone doing any cursory work with agents will realize how brittle > can be. Adding an extra layer of indirection isn’t helpful, it’s a gigantic hindrance that gives you a moving eval target. Being an MCP developer means you have a moving target of model optimization. It is a win for nobody.

The tools we need to solve this problem exist and they are boring. Types, jsonschema, openapi, all of it is a better integration point than MCP.

Re: MCP is dead?

#116

Post by fooster »

varenc wrote: post #95
jimbokun wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You failed to describe what value the MCP protocol provides. If all of these companies spent equivalent time writing a CLI for agents to consume as they spend on MCP servers, would they be any worse off in terms of agents being able to interact with their products?

The value is that many companies like building MCP servers much more than CLIs. For whatever reason. Here's some companies that offer MCP servers but don't seem to offer an equally featured CLI: - Asana - Square - Linear - Dropbox - Canva - Slack (sorta) - Figma (sorta) and many more that offer both, but support their MCP more. Should they all be offering CLI tools? IMHO, yes absolutely. But an MCP server gets much m…

The mcp support gets more support because there is no cli.

Re: MCP is dead?

#117

Post by fooster »

red_hare wrote: post #101
rgbrenner wrote: post #16

The article has no date on it, but says deferred tool loading is a recent update that occurred after the article was written. Deferred tool loading was added in Nov 2025: https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/advanced-tool-use So these numbers are at least 7 months out of date. Why is this being posted now?

+1 Its crazy that people are still discussing this. It's ancient history. Deferred tool loading, large contexts, and prompt caching have made 2026 completely different from 2025. Also, the "CLI saves token" debate really falls apart when step one of using the CLI is running "--help". The problem remains: if knowing how to call the thing isn't in parametric memory, it has to be in context.

Build a more specific skill the for the exact workflow you want?

Re: MCP is dead?

#118

Post by jrflowers »

mxstbr wrote: post #22

I run the team at OpenAI that's responsible for the ChatGPT App Store, Codex plugins, and all things MCP. The thing that all these "MCP is dead" posts are missing is that whether or not MCP is used as a transport protocol is actually completely irrelevant. The reason MCP isn't dead is because practically ~every company on the planet is building an MCP server. I know this because we interact with all of them. Most of…

> practically ~every company on the planet is building an MCP server

I work at Taco Bell. Every company on earth is working on Doritos Locos Tacos. I know this because I interact with every company on the planet, and they all tell me that Doritos Locos is in their development pipeline. When I see all of these “not everybody eats or wants Doritos Locos” posts I know that they are wrong because the appeal of them is universal, especially when paired with Baja Blast, mankind’s foremost favorite fluid

Re: MCP is dead?

#119

Post by rixed »

tlogan wrote: post #112
mxstbr wrote: post #22

I run the team at OpenAI that's responsible for the ChatGPT App Store, Codex plugins, and all things MCP. The thing that all these "MCP is dead" posts are missing is that whether or not MCP is used as a transport protocol is actually completely irrelevant. The reason MCP isn't dead is because practically ~every company on the planet is building an MCP server. I know this because we interact with all of them. Most of…

I would bet that MCP is going to die. The main reason is that it adds another layer (and human) that can, and probably will, get out of sync with the real-world implementation, whether that implementation is an API, web, or a CLI. AI should not be using a protocol or set of instructions that is different from what humans have access to (know and use). Sure, companies want to expose MCP servers because it is the cool…

Soon, if you want the performance of your AI clients to improve (wrt. token count and understanding) you will start to customize the output of the MCP server for more synthetic data, different data types, more permissive inputs, etc. And since most your clients will be AI that might be your API that fall behind, and MCP that will be maintained.

That's at least my experience with my current project: the traditional json, coding oriented API feels out of place, I maintain it out of habit. The real API is the MCP server, which is not designed like a traditional API would; understandability of the output for an LLM prevails instead of searchng for exhaustiveness, orthogonality etc.

Re: MCP is dead?

#120

Post by jrflowers »

julianlam wrote: post #82
mxstbr wrote: post #22

I run the team at OpenAI that's responsible for the ChatGPT App Store, Codex plugins, and all things MCP. The thing that all these "MCP is dead" posts are missing is that whether or not MCP is used as a transport protocol is actually completely irrelevant. The reason MCP isn't dead is because practically ~every company on the planet is building an MCP server. I know this because we interact with all of them. Most of…

> The reason MCP isn't dead is because practically ~every company on the planet is building an MCP server. I know this because we interact with all of them. Wow if that's not an echo-chamber comment I don't know what is.

Trying to imagine my boss telling me that I’ve talked to everyone on earth in a convincing way and can’t stop laughing

Like imagine somebody saying “you’re the most handsomest boy in the world” and thinking “Shit, nobody would just make something like that up.”

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