This was my initial understanding but if you want ai agents to do complex multi step workflows I.e. making data pipelines they just do so much better with MCP.

After I got the MCP working my case the performance difference was dramatic

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eli 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I have never had a problem using cli tools intead of mcp. If you add a little list of the available tools to the context it's nearly the same thing, though with added benefits of e.g. being able to chain multiple together in one tool call

	▲	ianm218 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Not doubting you just sharing my experience - was able to get dramatically better experience for multi step workflows that involve feedback from SQL compilers with MCP. Probably the right harness to get the same performance with the right tools around the API calls but was easier to stop fighting it for me