41 lines
3.5 KiB
Markdown
41 lines
3.5 KiB
Markdown
# Evolution of Agent Tooling (Tools → MCP → Skills)
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#concept
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## Summary
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Konstantin's three-generation map of how agents get capabilities: **Tools (2022–2024) → MCP (late 2024–2025) → Skills (2025→)**. Each generation trades off developer cost, context consumption, and flexibility.
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## Current Understanding
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| Generation | What it is | Strength | Weakness |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| **Tools** | Function tagged and injected into the model call (LangChain/LlamaIndex) | Direct control | Every tool eats context; you write/adapt each yourself |
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| **MCP** | Locally-deployed server exposing many tools via a standard protocol (Anthropic); marketplaces exist | Ready-made tools, plug-in | Dozens of tools per server → context blowout (>100 = chaos); network-load = security surface; needs a developer |
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| **Skills** | Directory + `SKILL.md` (+ tools + data), two-stage loading | Hundreds without context blowout; author with text in any language; share via git/messenger | No standards yet for data/limits |
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**When to use which:** Skills when tasks are unknown/diverse or tool count is ~5–50; MCP when the agent is narrow, tasks are uniform, and the same small toolset applies every time. The line blurs — Claude Code converts MCP servers *into* skills (file laid down, functions not all injected), erasing most MCP downsides. Konstantin doesn't hate MCP; its problems are largely solved.
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**A fourth position: skip the progression.** [[thorsten-ball]] uses none of the three generations as user-authored artifacts — no skills, no MCP servers, no slash commands — and locates capability instead in the *codebase* plus `AGENTS.md` plus a rich prompt ([[2026-07-28-agentic-engineering-10x-developer]]). [[amp]] does ship structure (Oracle/Painter/Puck sub-agents, a model/effort dial), but the vendor curates it, not the user. Read against this table, his claim is that the progression's real axis was never tools → MCP → skills but **who supplies the context and where it lives** — and that for someone working in one well-tended repo, the repo wins. See the three competing readings logged on [[skills-as-memory]].
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## Evidence
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- Three generations, per-generation problems, skills-vs-MCP decision table, Claude-Code-turns-MCP-into-skills caveat — [[2026-07-14-skills-based-on-git]].
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- Skills as portable markdown folders across Claude/Perplexity/Gemini — [[2026-07-14-gap-between-ai-users-irreversible]].
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- The skip-it-all position; vendor-curated sub-agents in place of user-authored skills — [[2026-07-28-agentic-engineering-10x-developer]].
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## Related Pages
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- Concepts: [[skills-as-memory]], [[harness]], [[context-as-scarce-resource]]
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- Tools: [[claude-code]], [[hermes]], [[amp]]
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- Entity: [[konstantin]], [[thorsten-ball]]
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## Contradictions / Uncertainty
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- "Everything changes every 6 months" — MCP was just ratified and A2A is already wanted; this map may shift quickly. Status: tentative.
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- The map assumes each generation *supersedes* the last. Thorsten's practice suggests a parallel track that never enters the table at all (repo + `AGENTS.md`), which would make the progression a history of *one* branch rather than of agent capability as such. Status: tentative.
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## Next Questions
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- Where does agent-to-agent (A2A) sit in this progression? *(Partial datapoint 2026-07-28: [[amp]] shipped agent-to-agent messaging and a meta-agent that spawns and controls other agents — see [[async-by-default]]. It arrived as a harness feature, not as a fourth generation of capability-delivery, which the table would not have predicted.)*
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