Agent Skills or MCP?

Description

Agentic AI and Claude Code are having a moment, thanks in no small part to agent skills. What does this mean for MCP? In his newest lightboard, Tim Berglund sorts it out. Along the way, he recaps what's new in the MCP spec (streamable HTTP, OAuth 2.1, and the quiet decline of the Resource API), and he breaks down what skills are and where they overlap with MCP. The short answer: local coding agents can lean on skills, but agentic microservices still very much need MCP. Tim's related video on MCP: https://youtu.be/FLpS7OfD5-s 0:17 What is MCP? (quick overview) 1:45 What has changed in MCP recently 4:22 What are skills? (quick overview) 6:35 Where Skills and MCP overlap and diverge 8:43 Why agentic microservices still need MCP 9:35 Looking ahead You can try Confluent Intelligence at https://www.confluent.io/product/confluent-intelligence Promo code: CONTEXTENG LEARN MORE ► MCP Lightboard: https://youtu.be/FLpS7OfD5-s ► Context Engineering Lightboard: https://youtu.be/Cs7QiSi8KLY ► Confluent Developer: https://developer.confluent.io CONNECT Subscribe, if you dare: https://www.youtube.com/@ConfluentDeveloper?sub_confirmation=1 Community Slack: https://confluentcommunity.slack.com X: https://x.com/confluentinc Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/confluent GitHub: https://github.com/confluentinc Site: https://developer.confluent.io ABOUT CONFLUENT DEVELOPER Confluent Developer provides comprehensive resources for developers looking to learn about Apache Kafka®, Apache Flink®, Confluent Cloud, Confluent Platform, and any other technology related to the broader Data Streaming Platform. Content on Confluent Developer includes courses, getting started guides, topical deep-dives, patterns, tutorials, and listings of community events. Learn more at https://developer.confluent.io. #agentskills #claudecode #mcp