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Thinking MCP is obsolete because full coding agents don't need it misses out on all of the other things we might want to build.
Even if your agent has internet access, why waste tokens having it re-discover and re-implement its own API client each time? It doesn't make any sense.
Making the model use curl is even stupider. It still needs to do the same amount of work to lookup and understand the API contracts (assuming those are even public). But now it also needs to juggle the auth flows and marshalling at the tool call level.
You said ""re-implements an API client" which means you either don't know what curl is or don't know what an api client is. So I'd chill on calling things "stupider" when you don't have a strong grasp on the words you're using.
In your mind, is netcat also an API client? When normal people talk about api clients, they're referring to an sdk or a cli which provides a simpler interface for a specific API.
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Thinking MCP is obsolete because full coding agents don't need it misses out on all of the other things we might want to build.
0x696C6961 · · focus · HN ↗
mexicocitinluez · · focus · HN ↗
Is using curl considered re-implementing your own api client each time?
0x696C6961 · · focus · HN ↗
mexicocitinluez · · focus · HN ↗
0x696C6961 · · focus · HN ↗
mexicocitinluez · · focus · HN ↗
And When "normal" people talk about api clients? lol This site is wild.
0x696C6961 · · focus · HN ↗