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OpenAI adds MCP support to Agents SDK

openai.github.io

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Re: OpenAI adds MCP support to Agents SDK

#251

Post by nsonha »

dartos wrote: post #242
nsonha wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like we should have transport agnostic RPC by now, GRPC? And MCP is stateless too. And you don't have to create a client per API, it's up to implementation.

I think MCP is a layer higher than grpc. MCP can be implemented on gRPC Mcp is definitely not stateless. It’s explicitly stateful… See the 2nd bullet where it says “stateful connections” [1] And I was saying that with OpenAPI, you need a client per API, or at least a series of http api calls. 1. https://spec.modelcontextprotocol.io/specification/2025-03-2...

Higher in what way?

But HOW is it stateful? That "mandate" the only occurence of that string "state" in that document.

Re: OpenAI adds MCP support to Agents SDK

#252

Post by dan-kwiat »

samchon wrote: post #171

Can't I do function calling in OpenAPI? I also feel like MCP is reinventing the wheel. I have been converting OpenAPI documents into function calling schemas and doing tool calling since function calling first came out in 2023, but it's not easy to recreate a backend server to fit MCP. Also, these days, I'm making a compiler-driven function calling specialized framework, but I'm a little cautious about whether MCP wi…

[dead]

Re: OpenAI adds MCP support to Agents SDK

#253

Post by [deleted] »

Xelynega wrote: post #234
nomilk wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

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]

Re: OpenAI adds MCP support to Agents SDK

#254

Post by orliesaurus »

dan-kwiat wrote: post #235
pulkitsh1234 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Tool calling" is just one part of MCP, there are more things like "Sampling" which allow the server itself to initiate stuff on the client. As for tool calling, having a layer like MCP makes sense because there a lot of things which don't have a REST-API + may need direct access to the computer (filesystem, processes, etc). Examples: * Running SQL commands on a DB or a Redis instance. * Launching Docker containers,…

I just made a tool which parses any OpenAPI spec to MCP spec: https://www.open-mcp.org (literally just deployed so I don't know if the DNS has propagated globally yet..)

very cool, I tried to feed it the toolhouse.ai openapi spec and it worked VERY quickly!! wow

Re: OpenAI adds MCP support to Agents SDK

#255

Post by dartos »

nsonha wrote: post #251
dartos wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think MCP is a layer higher than grpc. MCP can be implemented on gRPC Mcp is definitely not stateless. It’s explicitly stateful… See the 2nd bullet where it says “stateful connections” [1] And I was saying that with OpenAPI, you need a client per API, or at least a series of http api calls. 1. https://spec.modelcontextprotocol.io/specification/2025-03-2...

Higher in what way? But HOW is it stateful? That "mandate" the only occurence of that string "state" in that document.

“That document” is the MCP spec. What is says _is_ MCP, regardless of your understanding of it.

It’s not a “mandate” it’s a specification for how the protocol works. If the connection isn’t stateful, then it isn’t adhering to the specification.

I mean also like… how is it stateless? For both example transports (stdio and SSE) a connection must be maintained.

ANY connection must be initialized via an MCP message and both server and client must negotiate capabilities.

Those capabilities must be honored through the entire lifetime of the connection.

That alone is state.

I suggest you read the spec…

Re: OpenAI adds MCP support to Agents SDK

#256

Post by dartos »

nsonha wrote: post #251
dartos wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think MCP is a layer higher than grpc. MCP can be implemented on gRPC Mcp is definitely not stateless. It’s explicitly stateful… See the 2nd bullet where it says “stateful connections” [1] And I was saying that with OpenAPI, you need a client per API, or at least a series of http api calls. 1. https://spec.modelcontextprotocol.io/specification/2025-03-2...

Higher in what way? But HOW is it stateful? That "mandate" the only occurence of that string "state" in that document.

Also

> Higher in what way?

Higher as in at a higher level in the network stack (not exactly, I don’t think, but lower on the same level)

Higher as in you can implement MCP on top of grpc.

You can’t implement grpc in mcp, that doesn’t make sense, because grpc is at a lower level, so to speak, in the network stack.

Re: OpenAI adds MCP support to Agents SDK

#257

Post by Xelynega »

ondrsh wrote: post #248
Xelynega wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And because this can now happen at runtime, users (instead of developers) can add arbitrary functionality to applications. I don't understand what you mean by this. Currently without MCP a server has an API that's documented and to interact with it(thus provide "arbitrary functionality") you call those APIs from your own application code(e.x. python script). With MCP an LLM connected to your application code calls…

>In both cases the application code needs to be modified to account for the new functionality, unless you're also using the LLM to handle the logic which will have very unpredictable results. In the case of MCP, no application code is modified. You first ship the application and then functionality is added. Using plain APIs, it's the other way around. That's the difference.

I don't understand this at all.

If my application performs some function dependant on data from an API(e.x. showing tax information, letting a user input tax information, and performing tax calculations and autocomplete), how do I extend that UI easier with MCP than with an HTTP REST API.

Even with MCP I need to update my application code to add UI elements(inputs, outputs) for a user to interact with this new functionality, no?

Re: OpenAI adds MCP support to Agents SDK

#258

Post by georgeashworth »

nomilk wrote: post #143
consumer451 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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!

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.

Re: OpenAI adds MCP support to Agents SDK

#259

Post by ondrsh »

Xelynega wrote: post #257
ondrsh wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In both cases the application code needs to be modified to account for the new functionality, unless you're also using the LLM to handle the logic which will have very unpredictable results. In the case of MCP, no application code is modified. You first ship the application and then functionality is added. Using plain APIs, it's the other way around. That's the difference.

I don't understand this at all. If my application performs some function dependant on data from an API(e.x. showing tax information, letting a user input tax information, and performing tax calculations and autocomplete), how do I extend that UI easier with MCP than with an HTTP REST API. Even with MCP I need to update my application code to add UI elements(inputs, outputs) for a user to interact with this new functi…

No, MCP does not include any concept of UI (yet). Tool results are usually text only, although there is also the abstraction of an Image (which can be displayed as clients as decide to, e.g. inline).

Re: OpenAI adds MCP support to Agents SDK

#260

Post by mercenario »

izwasm wrote: post #76

MCP is great. But what i'd like to understand is whats the difference between MCP and manually prompting the model a list of tools with description and calling the specific function based on the llm response ?

You can build all the tools yourself, or you can just go to a "tools store", install it and use it. MCP is just the standard everyone can use to build, share and use these tools.

Just like an app store, a chrome extension store, we can have a LLM tools store.

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