MCP After Year One — Six Design Lessons the Industry Is Still Learning

Short summary

MCP servers should expose business operations, not REST CRUD methods—agents need single-call actions like prepare_onboarding, not REST chains like get_user then create_order. Progressive discovery prevents context bloat: serve an index, not thirty tool descriptions. Distinguish MCP (authorization, audit, enterprise systems) from Skills (local procedures). These patterns reduce token costs, latency, and agent errors.

• •Design MCP tools as business operations (complete agent actions) not REST CRUD methods to reduce token chains and errors
• •Use progressive discovery to manage context windows—serve an index, expand tool descriptions on demand
• •Use MCP for authorization, audit, and enterprise data; use Skills for self-contained local procedures

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