Lately I found MCP to be much more than a coding tool. For example, I implemented it in my more complex macOS apps [0] like rcmd, Clop, Lunar, so they can be configured by natural language.
So even with a local Qwen and Pi you can now say things like:
Set up Clop to optimise any PNG that I drop in my website assets folder and convert to a webp with the same name near it
Get Crank to start Time Machine backups immediately when I connect my HDD and notify me when the backup is done.
I want to be able to hold rcmd and fuzzy search and focus cmux agent panes
BetterTouchTool has a great MCP which can create native SwiftUI views and bind them to hotkeys, trackpad gestures etc. It can leverage its immense macOS automation tools and private APIs to let agents do Computer Use.
You would need a much more capable coding model to code those tools from scratch and get the same fail-safe logic that the apps have honed over the years.
Like, since MCP, Crank [1] has fully replaced my use of crontab, launchd, scattered scripts I run once a week. Not that it could not do that before, but it's so much simpler now to just describe the automation and have it happen reliably and visible in the UI. The friction is gone.
This isn't restricted to agents. It's generally annoying when any service I may want to use programmatically is exposed through a CLI but not an API. Sure, I can call a CLI from most programming languages, but I/O beyond arguments and return values is at best awkward, and especially on non-UNIX OSes performance can suffer due to process creation overhead for every command.
Recent example: The AWS CLI has a convenient "s3 sync" command that does a one-way directory sync, only downloadiong new files if existing files with matching sizes and timestamps don't exist, but the closest thing the .NET SDK has unconditionally overwrites destination files.
Another example: one of the nicest things about C# is how the compiler exposes itself as extensive library functionality, so, not only can I compile and run code at runtime, I can generate this code from programmatically created ASTs instead of text, parse expressions into ASTs, etc.
Yes - Or a working directory that’s under version control where they can write arbitrary memory files and maintain working state across contexts.
These are things devs often take for granted as being part of ‘how chat agents operate’ but they are specific to how claude code/opencode/pi/codex operate.
Giving agents a Unix computer account they can play with is definitely a powerful tool that makes them capable of doing a lot more (see: meta muse, OpenAI dots), in much the same way that giving a human a computer they are trained to use makes them way more capable… but it’s surely not the only way we can run these things.
alin23 · · focus · HN ↗
So even with a local Qwen and Pi you can now say things like:
BetterTouchTool has a great MCP which can create native SwiftUI views and bind them to hotkeys, trackpad gestures etc. It can leverage its immense macOS automation tools and private APIs to let agents do Computer Use.You would need a much more capable coding model to code those tools from scratch and get the same fail-safe logic that the apps have honed over the years.
Like, since MCP, Crank [1] has fully replaced my use of crontab, launchd, scattered scripts I run once a week. Not that it could not do that before, but it's so much simpler now to just describe the automation and have it happen reliably and visible in the UI. The friction is gone.
[0] <a href="https://reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1wkv0dy/mcp_in_macos_apps_are_they_useful_for_you/" rel="nofollow">https://reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1wkv0dy/mcp_in_macos_a...
[1] <a href="https://lowtechguys.com/crank" rel="nofollow">https://lowtechguys.com/crank
anthonypasq · · focus · HN ↗
Everyone on this forum has an absolute paucity of imagination when it comes to applying LLMs to any use case that doesnt involve coding.
vorticalbox · · focus · HN ↗
Of course MCP has its use case like if you want auth, or session based actions.
anthonypasq · · focus · HN ↗
NO IT CANT!!! why dont you understand that not all agents have access to a terminal!
jasomill · · focus · HN ↗
Recent example: The AWS CLI has a convenient "s3 sync" command that does a one-way directory sync, only downloadiong new files if existing files with matching sizes and timestamps don't exist, but the closest thing the .NET SDK has unconditionally overwrites destination files.
Another example: one of the nicest things about C# is how the compiler exposes itself as extensive library functionality, so, not only can I compile and run code at runtime, I can generate this code from programmatically created ASTs instead of text, parse expressions into ASTs, etc.
jameshart · · focus · HN ↗
These are things devs often take for granted as being part of ‘how chat agents operate’ but they are specific to how claude code/opencode/pi/codex operate.
Giving agents a Unix computer account they can play with is definitely a powerful tool that makes them capable of doing a lot more (see: meta muse, OpenAI dots), in much the same way that giving a human a computer they are trained to use makes them way more capable… but it’s surely not the only way we can run these things.
nimih · · focus · HN ↗
anthonypasq · · focus · HN ↗