←back to thread

What if you don't need MCP at all?

(mariozechner.at)
237 points jdkee | 3 comments | 16 Nov 25 18:58 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
Show context
whoknowsidont ◴[16 Nov 25 21:37 UTC] No.45948637[source]▶
MCP was a really shitty attempt at building a plugin framework that was vague enough to lure people into and then allow other companies to build plugin platforms to take care of the MCP non-sense.

"What is MCP, what does it bring to the table? Who knows. What does it do? The LLM stuff! Pay us $10 a month thanks!"

LLM's have function / tool calling built into them. No major models have any direct knowledge of MCP.

Not only do you not need MCP, but you should actively avoid using it.

Stick with tried and proven API standards that are actually observable and secure and let your models/agents directly interact with those API endpoints.

replies(8): >>45948748 #>>45949815 #>>45950303 #>>45950716 #>>45950817 #>>45951274 #>>45951510 #>>45951951 #
paulddraper ◴[17 Nov 25 02:15 UTC] No.45950303[source]▶
> No major models have any direct knowledge of MCP.

Claude and ChatGPT both support MCP, as does the OpenAI Agents SDK.

(If you mean the LLM itself, it is "known" at least as much as any other protocol. For whatever that means.)

replies(1): >>45950488 #
whoknowsidont ◴[17 Nov 25 02:57 UTC] No.45950488[source]▶
>it is "known" at least as much as any other protocol.

No. It is not. Please understand what the LLM's are doing. Claude nor ChatGPT nor any major model knows what MCP is.

They know how to function & tool call. They have zero trained data on MCP.

That is a factual statement, not an opinion.

replies(6): >>45950540 #>>45950541 #>>45950569 #>>45950763 #>>45950803 #>>45951338 #
1. Bockit ◴[17 Nov 25 03:08 UTC] No.45950541[source]▶
This is probably a semantics problem. You’re right. The models don’t know how to mcp. The harness they run in does though (Claude code, Claude desktop, etc), and dynamically exposes mcp tools as tool calls.
replies(2): >>45950559 #>>45950581 #
2. llbbdd ◴[17 Nov 25 03:11 UTC] No.45950559[source]▶
HN loves inventing semantics problems around AI. It's gotten really, really annoying and I'm not sure the people doing it are even close to understanding it.
3. whoknowsidont ◴[17 Nov 25 03:17 UTC] No.45950581[source]▶
>dynamically exposes mcp tools as tool calls.

It doesn't even do that. It's not magic.