Remote MCPs: What we learned from shipping — John Welsh, Anthropic

Introduction to MCP and Implementation Challenges 00:20

• John Welsh introduces himself and shares his 20 years of experience in building large-scale systems.
• He discusses the excitement around models that can call tools effectively and the rapid proliferation of custom endpoints leading to integration chaos.
• Identifies the need for standardization in tools and communication between models and services.

Understanding MCP Components 02:12

• Discusses two sides of MCP: the JSON RPC specification for message communication and the global transport standard for session management.
• Emphasizes the importance of standardization to prevent chaos and duplicate efforts across different services.

Standardizing on MCP 05:09

• Advocates for adopting MCP internally due to the growing industry demand and its position as an emerging standard among AI labs.
• Highlights the benefits of using MCP, including pre-existing solutions for common problems like billing models and usage tracking.

Development of the MCP Gateway 07:50

• Describes the MCP gateway as a centralized service that simplifies the integration process for engineers.
• The gateway standardizes calls to external and internal services, handling authentication and rate limiting.

Technical Implementation 09:15

• Provides a high-level overview of the code and mechanisms used to connect to the MCP gateway.
• Discusses using websockets for internal transport and the versatility of different transport methods like gRPC and Unix sockets.

Unified Authentication and Security 11:21

• Explains the centralized approach to authentication managed by the MCP gateway, which simplifies user experience and security.
• Addresses potential security concerns regarding model access to sensitive data and the importance of policy enforcement.

Benefits of MCP Integration 13:00

• Highlights the advantage of having a unified context for models and the ease of adding MCP support to new services.
• Encourages focusing on feature development rather than plumbing, thanks to standardized message formats.

Key Takeaways 14:13

• Reiterates that MCP is fundamentally about managing JSON streams and the simplicity of implementation.
• Emphasizes the importance of standardization, creating positive incentives for engineers, and centralizing shared problems to focus on higher-value tasks.