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237 points jdkee | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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nestorD ◴[] No.45949335[source]
So far I have seen two genuinely good arguments for the use of MCPs:

* They can encapsulate (API) credentials, keeping those out of reach of the model,

* Contrary to APIs, they can change their interface whenever they want and with little consequences.

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1. rsanheim ◴[] No.45950485[source]
But …you have to give the MCP the creds somehow. Maybe it’s via a file on disk (bad), maybe via an env var (less bad). Maybe you do it via your password CLI that you biometricly auth to, which involves a timeout of some sort for security, but that often means you can’t leave an agent unattended.

In any case, how is any of this better than a CLI? CLIs have the same access models and tradeoffs, and a persistent agent will plumb the depths of your file system and environment to find a token to do a thing if your prompt was “do a thing, use tool/mcp/cli”.

So where is this encapsulation benefit?

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2. tuananh ◴[] No.45950654[source]
mcp is easy to self-host. model? a little less so.