[brazukadev]

The LLM can only use MCP tools, but the Client you use the model can access resources, prompts, elicitation and sampling, which are tools to help with querying the model. So one MCP server that implements some or all these features can act as an agent for the LLM dispatching tasks IF the client is also an MCP host/client.

[ming030890]

But most of these can really be just a tool.

For example, A resource can be just a getter tool, like getFile.

[brazukadev]

MCP is a protocol, a proposal on standardizing how to do things so we can reuse tools. Whatever thing you want to do with MCP you can do without MCP, that is obvious. But when lots of people agree to write and consume using the same protocol there is a big productivity rise.

[didibus]

Resources could be a tool like list resources, but exposing them as resources means in the client you can show the user the list of resources, and the client can choose to include their descriptions in the context without the model choosing to do so for example.

[tptacek]

Right. My understanding of these APIs and model capabilities is imperfect, but at the level I interact with them at, there are only two things: prompts (more broadly: context chunks) and tool calls. I don't see how MCP could meaningfully expand that; it seems like anything I could do with MCP, I could do with context chunks and tool calls --- perhaps better, because I'd have finer-grained control of both security and of context management.