MCP vs. Agent Skills: A Decision Framework for Context Engineering

Short summary

MCP and AI Agent Skills solve different problems: MCP is an access badge that connects agents to external systems (databases, APIs, tools), while Agent Skills are playbooks that define how agents should execute repeatable procedures. Production-grade agents need both — MCP without Skills produces inconsistent improvisation, and Skills without MCP produces an agent that can't touch anything. The post includes a decision framework and code examples for both.

• •MCP provides standardized connections to external tools, databases, and APIs via JSON-RPC
• •Agent Skills (SKILL.md) define repeatable procedures and SOPs for agent behavior
• •Production agents need both: MCP for access, Skills for consistent execution

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