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What if you don't need MCP at all?

(mariozechner.at)
237 points jdkee | 1 comments | 16 Nov 25 18:58 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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nestorD ◴[16 Nov 25 23:16 UTC] 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. cstrahan ◴[17 Nov 25 20:21 UTC] No.45957820[source]▶
You're not wrong, but I figured I'd point out the cons / alternatives:

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

An alternative to MCP, which would still provide this: code (as suggested in https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/code-execution-with-mc... and https://blog.cloudflare.com/code-mode/).

Put the creds in a file, or secret manager of some sort, and let the LLM write code to read and use the creds. The downside is that you'd need to review the code to make sure that it isn't printing (or otherwise moving) the credentials, but then again you should probably be reviewing what the LLM is doing anyway.

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

The upside is as stated, but the downside is that you're always polluting the context window with MCP tool descriptions.