| ▲ | jonfw 8 days ago | |
MCP is just packaging. It's the ideal abstraction for building AI applications. I think it provides the similar benefits of decoupling the front and back end of a standard app. I can pick my favorite AI "front end"- whether that's in my IDE as a dev, a desktop app as a business user, or on a server if I'm running an agentic workflow. MCP allows you to package tools, prompts, etc. in a way that works across any of those front ends. Even if you don't plan on leveraging the MCP across multiple tools in that way- I do think it has some benefits in de-coupling the lifecycle of the tool development from the model/ UI. | ||
| ▲ | crowcroft 8 days ago | parent [-] | |
The biggest challenge I have is that setting up and configuring them is a mess. I'm pretty technical and I still find configuration confusing and brittle. Especially if auth is involved. I work in a marketing team, I would love folks to be able to use Google's Analytics MCP [1]. The idea of getting people into Google Cloud, or setting up and sharing a file with service account credentials is an absolute nightmare. I don't think these problems can't be solved, and if remote MCPs gain adoption that alone solves a lot of the issues, but the way most MCPs are packaged and shared currently leaves A LOT to be desired. | ||