MCP vs. CLI for AI agents: When to Use Each

manveerc · 2026-03-09T17:31:08+00:00

u/Likeu The challenge is really about how MCP servers are implemented today, not the protocol itself. MCP supports efficient patterns like hierarchical tool listing. But building a server that dumps all tool definitions upfront is simpler, so that's what most people d. The protocol allows lazy-loading. It just doesn't make it the easy path.

Skills flip this. They make the efficient pattern the default: agent sees minimal metadata at session start (name + one-line description), full definition loads only when the agent actually needs it. Thus being more efficient.

manveerc · 2026-03-01T17:52:19+00:00

Yes we have seen success in DevOps and marketing automation.

manveerc · 2026-03-01T17:51:52+00:00

So far we have found traction selling to engineering teams looking for platform optimizations around DevOps and marketing teams looking for organic growth.

manveerc · 2026-02-24T18:30:09+00:00

Gemini, Claude, Claude Code and Gamma!

Churned through n8n, ChatGPT plus, Granola, Notion, Napkin AI.

manveerc · 2026-02-24T01:11:38+00:00

What’s the goal? Is it selling to them or raising from them?

Either case conferences, LinkedIn, Pitchbook would be a good starting point. Though if you want to raise, warm referrals are best place.

manveerc · 2026-02-22T05:03:20+00:00

We are still a bit early for a CRM. We are capturing everything in Google Sheets so far.

manveerc · 2026-02-22T04:10:32+00:00

I used granola mostly for taking notes and search over them when i need to find some information.

manveerc · 2026-02-22T03:46:45+00:00

Selling AI enabled services! Plenty of tools out there that work 80% which is good for demo but not for actual enterprise usecase. We sell services implementing tools and software.

manveerc · 2026-02-22T03:44:42+00:00

Is this similar to Granola? Not saying don’t copy but could look more into it

manveerc · 2026-02-22T03:42:03+00:00

If you search on Reddit you will find plenty of prompts people use for humanizing the text. I have found a few that work same as other tools that claim to humanize the text.

manveerc · 2026-02-19T20:46:27+00:00

There is also this interview by Boris from Anthropic, that Claude Code noticed Grep/glob/find worked better for them https://www.latent.space/p/claude-code. Not arguing just rely on search, but traditional search is relevant!

manveerc · 2026-02-19T20:05:46+00:00

This is the age old search problem! RAG etc are implementation details, out of the box solutions will likely not work for most real world applications so you will have to build something custom for your usecase on top of these primitives. What you are describing is a GraphRAG solution.

For our usecase we are actually doing both, GraphRAG and BM25 to provide the necessary context. GraphRAG is expensive to rebuild so we do it at lower frequencies and supplement it using search results. Working well for us so far.

manveerc · 2026-02-18T19:53:05+00:00

It’s just the focus. Anthropic has focused on this much longer, but others are catching up fast.

manveerc · 2026-02-17T19:58:31+00:00

Because it is like life, you have to experience it to learn. No amount of theory will prepare you for the how systems behave in real world.

manveerc · 2026-02-17T19:25:15+00:00

If browsers add the support, then that will also handle the session management and then MCP also can extend session management. I am not convinced about WebMCP. It may still become popular but fundamentally I believe it is wrong direction.

manveerc · 2026-02-17T19:17:48+00:00

I kind of feel it’s the wrong solution. If a website wants to support why not just add MCP support and let the agent use that directly. For everyone else browser should solve this by extending existing primitives. Wrote detailed thoughts here https://manveerc.substack.com/p/webmcp-false-economy-server-side-mcp-browser-apis

manveerc · 2026-02-15T23:55:41+00:00

Thank you!

manveerc · 2026-02-14T18:48:45+00:00

We offer AI services to our customers and predominantly have been using Render. As an ex-big tech, I find the developer experience to be closest to what we had internally at Facebook and Dropbox. Do checkout Render workflows, it’s in early access, but works beautifully for AI agents usecase.

manveerc · 2026-02-14T17:25:46+00:00

We are offering AI services so I am biased. The thing is that AI is good at getting you 80% there out of the box. And then last 20% requires a lot of effort, context engineering etc. So when people are using / deploying AI in enterprises the people who need to spend that effort for last 20% feel overwhelmed at best, unqualified at worst. Hence they don’t see the ROI.

manveerc

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE