> Markdown version of [/events/world-congress-2026-europe/sessions/1218-mcp-doesn-t-suck](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-europe/sessions/1218-mcp-doesn-t-suck). Every page supports `.md` or `Accept: text/markdown`. Links point to the HTML versions so they work for humans too. Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md).

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# MCP doesn’t suck — your agent does


- **Date:** Friday, Jul 10, 2026
- **Time:** 09:40–10:10 (30 min)
- **Room:** Stage 1
- **Event:** World Congress 2026 Europe

## Recording

[Watch recording](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100202-mcp-doesn-t-suck-your-agent-does)

## Description

Most AI agents misuse MCP and treat tools as prompt-time function calls: tool definitions and results are repeatedly injected into the context, tokens are wasted, and context rots. The result? Slower, less reliable agents, and the misleading conclusion that “MCP sucks, CLIs are better.”

To challenge this narrative and show how agents can get the best of both MCP and CLI, we’ve built mcpc, an open-source universal CLI client for MCP. It maps MCP operations to intuitive CLI commands, which agents quickly pick up through --help without external skills.

It turns out, CLI is the perfect local interface for agents to interact with MCP, giving them access to full protocol capabilities, including modern features like code mode or progressive tool discovery through a single Bash() tool call, while leveraging MCP’s standard remote interface for server discovery, authentication, payments, and access control.

To once and for all kill the MCP vs. CLI debate and show those two technologies are not exclusive but complementary, we’ll present evals comparing the performance of agents using naive MCP, modern MCP, native CLIs, other MCP CLIs, and mcpc, in various real-world scenarios.

## Speaker

### [Jan Curn](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/@jan-curn)

Founder and CEO of Apify


## Related talks at this congress

- [Building APIs for Agents vs Systems. Is MCP the answer?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-europe/sessions/1322-building-apis-for) — Adam Bird
- [MCP is all you need to make an AI-agent consume your RESTful API](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-europe/sessions/956-mcp-is-all-you-need) — Nikos Delis
- [API, MCP or MCP App? Choosing the right surface for AI agents](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-europe/sessions/1336-api-mcp-or-mcp-app) — Rishabh Budhiraja, Rishi Deorukhkar
- [Deep Dive: Mastering Agents, MCP and other hypes](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-europe/sessions/946-deep-dive-mastering) — Dr. Damir Dobric