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Show HN: MCP Isn't Dead. You're Just Using It Wrong

Article news.ycombinator.com

Show HN: MCP Isn't Dead. You're Just Using It Wrong

Everyone and their gran have been saying that MCP is dead.

But could it be that MCP's saving grace has been with us all along - hiding in plain sight?

A feature buried in Claude Code's Jan 2026 release may have marked the most powerful development in MCP since its inception - and almost nobody noticed. Dynamic Tool Registration.

Dynamic tool registration extends an MCP server's abilities beyond that of just a glorified swagger doc - allowing the server not just to list a static set of tools, but to dynamically add and remove new tools in real time as part of a stateful agent session.

And what's so powerful about that? Well for one it elegantly solves the main problem most people had with MCP in the first place - context bloat. Group your tools into collections of related actions - call them abilities - then provide a load_ability tool. The agent loads what it needs, when it needs it.

But it gets deeper than that.

Last weekend I built and shipped Commandable MCP - the MCP server for creating new MCP servers on the fly. MCP inception, if you will.

It gives agents tools to create new tools, usable immediately without compiling any code or restarting any processes.

Why would I want this?

Think about a standard Trello MCP server. It gives an agent something like create_trello_card(boardId, listId, name, description, labelIds, ...). Every time the agent wants to use it, it has to go fishing for IDs - calling get_boards, get_lists, get_labels - just to find the right place to add the card.

Imagine instead, the agent inspects your actual Trello account and generates add_bug_to_sprint(title, priority) - a tool that already knows your board, your list, your labels. Now it can use that tool whenever it needs to add a bug without reinventing the wheel.

Commandable lets agents build targeted tools for repeatable actions they actually use instead of long lists of generic tools from a standardised MCP or API. Credentials are encrypted at rest and never exposed to the LLM.

And - there's no context bloat. yay.

So, is MCP dead? Not yet.

GitHub: https://github.com/commandable/commandable-mcp

Full writeup: https://commandable.ai/blog/mcp-isnt-dead

Discussion 7 comments · 6 points · isaacrolandson · 2026-03-17
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