3 MCP server failure modes that bit us in production, and how we ship around them

MCP feels easy until it isn't. The first time you wire up a stdio server and call a tool from a Claude Agent SDK loop, the whole thing fits on a slide. Then you put it in front of customer codebases, customer GitHub credentials, customer build containers, and the sharp edges show up in places the spec is silent on. Tools start shadowing each other. The agent confidently uses a built-in Read when you wanted it to go through your sandboxed file server. Environment variables you set on the parent p