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MCP Explained: Why It Matters for AI Agents

Max Mitcham · 1,635 words · 8 min read

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0:00What is going on everyone? The world is

0:02buzzing with this term MCP. But what

0:05does that mean to you and what does that

0:07mean when it comes to your agents? Well,

0:10first of all, let's define what MCP is

0:13in the most simplistic way. And MCP

0:16stands for model context protocol which

0:19more or less effectively is a wrapper or

0:22maybe think of it as like a USBC for all

0:25of the APIs or applications that your

0:28agent could interact with. So

0:30historically when you were uh enabling

0:33an agent to query a tool you would have

0:36to query every single action or train

0:38the agent on every single action. Let's

0:40break this down into a simple example.

0:43Uh let's say the agent can send or do

0:46things on Slack. We would have to train

0:48the agent how to send a message to an

0:50individual user. We would have to train

0:53the agent how to send a message to a

0:55channel. We would have to ch train an

0:57agent how to reply to a certain message.

0:59You would have to train an agent to

1:01reply uh with an emoji. So on so on and

1:05so on. Now with an MCP you can take all

1:08of the available API endpoints

1:12uh from a given application and

1:14effectively give all of that to the

1:16agent. So the agent then has this

1:19knowledge of what endpoint it needs to

1:22query and then can query it based on

1:24basically reading all of this kind of

1:26context as it's coming in essentially.

1:29So that's probably like the easiest way

1:30that I would think about describing it.

1:32Now how do we go about setting these

1:35things up? Now, Claude is the one of the

1:38only like L&Ms that you can actually put

1:41uh MCPS straight into their application

1:44here. And so, if we have a look at it, I

1:47have added various different ones. I've

1:49got NA10, linear, uh Slack, Atio,

1:53Fireflies. We also have uh Gmail, Drive,

1:57which we can enable already through

1:58their tools and everything like that,

1:59which is awesome. But how did I get

2:02these in here? Well, it all started with

2:04cursor. Um, and what you can do with

2:07cursor is you basically can go ahead and

2:09you can start to ask it uh to set up the

2:12environment for you and then save a file

2:16uh which you then can upload into uh

2:19claude which you can do via I think it's

2:22um

2:23settings

2:25um and then you go to developer

2:28and then you add in uh the the file but

2:31you wouldn't need to do that once you've

2:32added the file or or done it the very

2:35first time it will work for you. So,

2:37let's go ahead and set one of these up

2:39and we'll do this in real time. And to

2:44do this, I think I'm going to go pick uh

2:47like perplexity. Here we go. This is a

2:50good one to to do. So, first things

2:52first, like you might be then wondering,

2:54okay, well, what do I use? Do I use MPX?

2:57Do I be using Docker? All of that. Most

3:00of the time, you're going to be using

3:00MPX. But listen, keep things simple.

3:03just copy and paste this entire thing

3:06into cursor.

3:08And let's just start up a new chat and

3:10say I want to set up this uh MCP.

3:17Um can you do this for me? Do this for

3:20me. And we're just going to copy and

3:21paste this into here. And we're going to

3:24let uh Claude take over the rest here.

3:28Now, this is going to run through and

3:29it's going to set this up. All all that

3:31I will need to go and do is as you can

3:33see from here is I'm going to need to

3:35add in my own API key um to authenticate

3:38with perplexity so that the tool itself

3:41can do the kind of deep research uh

3:44through there. Let's just have a look.

3:46There we go. It's done that. I can

3:48accept that. Now all that I would need

3:50to do is go ahead and add my perplexity

3:53API key in here and then hit save and

3:56then restart Claude and then it will

3:58basically be available uh from within

4:01here as well and then I can do it. So

4:03how does this look in principle? Well, I

4:05could then go and say, okay, um,

4:09uh, who is my next

4:12meeting with, right? And this is like

4:16I've got like a personal assistant now

4:18with me at all times through Claude.

4:21There's no need to use NA10 or anything

4:23like that in here. And what it's going

4:25to go do is it's going to go and search

4:27through all of the available tools uh,

4:29that it has available to it. I've just

4:31realized I need to go and connect the

4:33calendar here. For some reason, it's

4:35disconnected. So, let's go and do that.

4:39And we're also going to go and open

4:41Claude. Stop this.

4:44We're going to do a new chat.

4:47And this should work. So, just make sure

4:49you've connected it for it to work. I

4:52did have it connected. It's very weird

4:53how it's like unconnected.

4:57Might need to just give this a little

4:58refresh here. Let's close that and then

5:01fire that back up again. There we go.

5:05So, it should now be connected, which we

5:08are. Let's go ahead and let's just

5:10actually connect Gmail to this. Hit

5:12continue. Sign in. Away we go. Perfect.

5:17Perfect.

5:20Open Claw back up. And now we should be

5:23connected to everything. So, here we go.

5:24So, now we can say, who is my next

5:27meeting with?

5:29But what's really cool as well is you

5:31could start to ask it questions like

5:33when did I first discuss this particular

5:34subject with whomever or just generally

5:37right and it's going to then search

5:39through for me it's because I've

5:41connected the um fireflies it's going to

5:44search through atio which is my CRM

5:46fireflies which is my call recording and

5:48it's also going to search through emails

5:49it's going to search through all of

5:50these different queries uh to look at

5:52which one is um right and if I ever

5:56discussed any of that stuff within there

5:58as So, this is a really really cool way

6:00of doing this. You can also see now that

6:02we have Plexity in here and you can turn

6:04things on and off so they don't always

6:06have to use those tools uh as well. So,

6:09a few good sites for you to go to when

6:10you're thinking about like your MCP.

6:13First of all, there's this uh site here,

6:15Postman uh

6:18um and it's for/getMCP

6:21and like view collections. It's like the

6:23MCP catalog. You could just type this

6:24into Postman as well and go and find it

6:26from there. But you can also just search

6:29for things, right? So for example, I

6:30could go atom MCP and what you want to

6:34do is pull open someone's GitHub that

6:36has this in. You want to see, you know,

6:38is it being used much? Things like that.

6:40And then just go ahead and copy and

6:42paste this again into Claude and then it

6:44will work for you. And you can do this

6:46on HubSpot. You can do this on a lot a

6:48lot of different things, which is really

6:50exciting. And then it's just a case of

6:51actually interacting with Claude to get

6:54this information out and to have this as

6:56like your personal assistant. So this is

6:58huge uh when it comes to like querying

7:02different MCPS and understanding where I

7:05am at with everything. You can do this

7:07inside of NA10 as well. So if we go have

7:10a look at NA10, we can also use

7:12different um MCPs whether it's

7:16self-hosted or through the cloud. Um,

7:19first of all, what you can do is you can

7:20create a server. And this server you

7:23could then arm with all of the different

7:25tools. And the cool thing about this is

7:26you could give it even like a HTTP

7:28request, so a custom uh MCP tool that

7:31you have, or you could just give it ones

7:33that you've already preconfigured. But

7:35the point being is that once you then go

7:37and use an agent, you can then go and

7:39actually take the MCP server, and this

7:41thing could be hooked up to hundreds of

7:43different uh tools. And so, let me show

7:46you one I've got here. So, we've got

7:48this one hooked up to tons of different

7:50tools. From here, what I can do is I can

7:53then go and create an AI agent.

7:58There we go. Um, and then the tool that

8:01I give it, rather than having to

8:03preconfigure everything, like I said at

8:04the start of the call, I could literally

8:06just give it call the MCP and then chuck

8:08that endpoint in there. And now it has

8:11access to all of these one, two, three,

8:13four, five, six, seven, eight different

8:15tools without me needing to kind of

8:16pre-program them as well. So that's like

8:18a huge thing that you can do through an

8:20A10 and through chord. So combining

8:23these together, it creates uh an agent

8:26to be incredibly powerful and you can

8:28build it at incredible speeds as well,

8:30which is something that a lot of people

8:31don't really talk about, but just gives

8:33the agent more control to make those

8:35decisions. Yes, of course, it

8:37potentially could go wrong. Also, pick

8:40your models wisely. I use 4.1 a lot now

8:43for all of my uh agentbased stuff. Um,

8:46and I'm also just using it inside of

8:48Claude because it's so easy and quick to

8:50use.

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