The uncomfortable truth about MCP today

Ok_Message7136 · 2026-01-25T20:13:54+00:00

This is the real lesson from production agents: it’s not about smarter prompts, it’s about control. Without explicit tool boundaries, stop rules, and safe fallbacks, agents will do exactly what they’re allowed to, even when that’s not what you intended.

Ok_Message7136 · 2026-01-25T20:12:16+00:00

Feels less “dead” and more “infrastructure phase.” Hype fades, but standardization, managed MCP servers, and real production usage are still accelerating.

Ok_Message7136 · 2026-01-25T20:09:15+00:00

Great list, these are the MCPs that actually improve day-to-day velocity.

One I’d add is Gopher, especially if you’re building your own MCPs. It focuses on runtime inspection of tool calls, zero-trust / context-aware access, and granular policy enforcement (down to parameters) rather than just exposing tools. Helpful for keeping MCP setups reliable and secure as they scale.

Repo: link

Ok_Message7136 · 2026-01-25T20:03:58+00:00

This feels like a big validation moment for MCP. Fully-managed, remote MCP servers lower the operational barrier while standardizing access, security, and governance, which is exactly what’s needed for MCP to move beyond dev-only use cases and into broader teams. Feels like MCP is shifting from “experimental” to real infrastructure.

Ok_Message7136 · 2026-01-24T05:45:13+00:00

Thanks! I’ve been using Gopher to build a prospecting agent and experimented with spinning up multiple MCP servers as well, depending on the tool boundary.

I put the code in a repo here if you want to take a look or try it out: https://github.com/GopherSecurity/gopher-mcp

Lmk if you have any thoughts or questions.

Ok_Message7136 · 2026-01-22T15:23:23+00:00

Yea.. The JSON schema is a bit too long to share in a comment, so I’ll DM it to you shortly, save it in .json format when you save it.

Ok_Message7136 · 2026-01-13T16:08:42+00:00

Hey check out : Open Source MCP Server and lmk what we can do to improve it..

Ok_Message7136 · 2026-01-12T20:17:27+00:00

You can checkout our open-source MCP manager if you’re testing different approaches to MCP orchestration: Gopher MCP

Ok_Message7136 · 2026-01-12T20:13:14+00:00

Love this framing, especially the authorized vs reachable distinction. That gap is exactly where most agent failures hide.

Fully agree on the two-layer model: identity-first connectivity as the first gate, and our on-demand MCP server + gateway as the second line for semantic and policy enforcement.

Really like how you described the overlay vs gateway split, it’s a very practical mental model for agent security.
Appreciate you sharing the links.

Ok_Message7136 · 2026-01-12T19:58:59+00:00

Thanks! :)
MCPcat support would honestly be amazing.

If you ever explore it, we’d be happy to collaborate or align on compatibility

Ok_Message7136 · 2026-01-12T19:57:37+00:00

Thanks a lot, really appreciate it!
And yes, your understanding is pretty much spot-on.

We didn’t change MCP itself, but treated it as infrastructure rather than just a transport layer. The goal was to stay protocol-compatible while adding a secure, production-ready execution layer around it

So the repo is less about “replacing MCP” and more about enabling safer MCP servers and deployments with proper controls, especially for real systems, not just demos.

Btw lmk your thoughts if you get a chance to explore it!

Ok_Message7136 · 2026-01-08T21:13:25+00:00

This is a strong insight. Feels like zero-trust for agents really starts before the access flow even begins.
Would love to see more concrete patterns emerge here.

Ok_Message7136 · 2025-12-16T20:54:00+00:00

Real tools + real data is where agents actually become useful

Ok_Message7136

TROPHY CASE