This article entirely misses the value that MCP brings today.
Sure, there's almost no reason to use MCPs if you are running a full-blown terminal agent (Claude Code, Codex, Meta Muse, OpenClaw etc) with unfettered internet access - just let it call APIs directly.
If you want to operate something that's less YOLO than that, you'll find yourself wanting:
1. Control over exactly which external services it can access
2. A way to handle authentication that doesn't allow the agent to directly access API keys
3. A sensible UI to allow users to connect and authenticate further services
4. Strong audit logging for what's going on
MCP makes all of that so much easier to provide.
Thinking MCP is obsolete because full coding agents don't need it misses out on all of the other things we might want to build.
1. Control can be done via CLIs --> api key based access controls. We have been doing it forever.
2. I think this really only applies to Oauth based MCPs. Many server support api key based auth, stored as files --> security is still flawed imo.
3. This can be done via apis/clis too --> not something unique to MCP iimo
4. Same thing, not unique to MCP --> api servers can also be logged
MCP doesn't inherently make this easier. its still requires engineering maintaincence.
Having a standard does make sense though, because it lets agent services handle external calls in a standard way. So, for example something like Anthropic's agent platform will proxy all MCP calls and hide the credentials so that you don't have to worry about the agent leaking secrets into code/logs/the internet. Of course you could build a similar layer to proxy traffic to various APIs, but it becomes easier to make the whole thing plug and play if everyone agrees on the shape of the API (MCP).
i think standards are good for low level things. APIs change, model behvaiors change, we basically are allowing an external service provider to control our agent prompts.
simonw · · focus · HN ↗
Sure, there's almost no reason to use MCPs if you are running a full-blown terminal agent (Claude Code, Codex, Meta Muse, OpenClaw etc) with unfettered internet access - just let it call APIs directly.
If you want to operate something that's less YOLO than that, you'll find yourself wanting:
1. Control over exactly which external services it can access
2. A way to handle authentication that doesn't allow the agent to directly access API keys
3. A sensible UI to allow users to connect and authenticate further services
4. Strong audit logging for what's going on
MCP makes all of that so much easier to provide.
Thinking MCP is obsolete because full coding agents don't need it misses out on all of the other things we might want to build.
maharshi365 · · focus · HN ↗
MCP doesn't inherently make this easier. its still requires engineering maintaincence.
nortirn · · focus · HN ↗
maharshi365 · · focus · HN ↗