MCP vs Skills: a practical decision guide for builders

MCP vs Skills: a practical decision guide for builders I need my agent to do X. Skill or MCP? If you build agents on Claude or anything MCP-compatible, this is the question that actually matters. The two patterns get pitched as alternatives. They are not. They solve different problems. Most production agents need both. Here is the decision rule, the framing for each, and the anti-patterns I keep seeing. The two patterns in 60 seconds MCP (Model Context Protocol). A wire protocol. Your agent talk