What MCP is in this material ## MCP as the connective layer of the agentic web In the channel's material, MCP (Model Context Protocol) appears wherever the question is how agents reach tools, APIs, and data. Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott frames it as the protocol of the agentic web: MCP plays the role that HTTP plays on the internet, while Anthropic's NLWeb aims to be the moral equivalent of HTML — simple, open protocols that layer together. [^eea0a522-b6b8-5472-bf62-08b0a42ab8a3@326] Scott is also pushing for every internal Microsoft system to speak a standard agent protocol, so that team boundaries (Conway's law) don't leak into agent architecture. [^eea0a522-b6b8-5472-bf62-08b0a42ab8a3@423] [moment: 326] An SDK for LLMs — and why it is hard ## An SDK for LLMs — and why it is hard Alex Rattray of Stainless gives the developer-facing framing: SDKs (think pip install stripe) give humans a convenient way to interface with an API — so what gives LLMs that convenience? MCP is the obvious answer, but as it rolls out, in his telling, it isn't working so great. [^913c216d-5ccb-51d9-8f42-8feb7c017d9d@536] The failure mode is the context window: translating a large API one-to-one into MCP tools — Stripe exposes hundreds of endpoints — burns hundreds of thousands of tokens before any real work starts. [^913c216d-5ccb-51d9-8f42-8feb7c017d9d@871] [^ea9761fa-0184-555e-be30-4928a6682680@919] Rattray's design rules: keep tools few, names and descriptions precise, schemas small, and trim responses with a JQ filter. [^913c216d-5ccb-51d9-8f42-8feb7c017d9d@1346] [moment: 1346] Where MCP shows up in practice ## Where MCP shows up in practice - Security location: Rattray argues limiting what MCP exposes is the wrong lever — anything in the underlying API remains reachable — so security must live at the API layer with OAuth scopes, not at the MCP layer. [^913c216d-5ccb-51d9-8f42-8feb7c017d9d@2454] [moment: 2454] - Concurrent interaction: In the Granola conversation, Dan Shipper's view is that MCP alone isn't enough — historically it lets an agent interact with an app instead of the user, while the emerging paradigm is agent and user taking turns on the same live interface. - Everyday adoption: Andrew Wilkinson calls MCPs still early — some integrations slow — but sees them as a 'tentacle monster that touches all of your software' inside Claude Code. - MCP is the standard protocol layer connecting agents to tools, APIs, and data — Scott calls it the HTTP of the agentic web; Rattray calls it an SDK for LLMs. - Naive MCP design fails at scale: hundreds of API endpoints become hundreds of thousands of tokens of context cost; keep tools few, descriptions precise, and schemas small. - Security belongs at the API layer (OAuth, granular scopes), not at the MCP layer, per Rattray. - In practice, MCP is treated as necessary but not sufficient — Granola's pattern requires MCP plus shared live interface state, and adopters describe integrations that are still maturing.