{
  "id": 18546573,
  "title": "How to design MCP tools for agents",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/06/how-to-design-mcp-tools-for-agents",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-11-06T18:45:22.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/bigcircle/how-to-design-mcp-tools-for-agents-50i9"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": null,
  "summary": "Designing MCP tools for agents involves creating a set of operations that an MCP server exposes for a model to call. These tools should be designed based on the questions users ask rather than the endpoints provided by vendors. The recommended approach is to have fewer, larger tools and a consolidation layer that sits in front of multiple sources, deciding which source is authoritative for each question. This consolidation layer should return structured JSON, authenticate every request as the user, and log every call. Direct vendor wires are reasonable for a single read-only source with a single owner, but become unreasonable once a second source for the same question arrives. The consolidation layer should handle authentication, rate limits, and logging, and decide the next change based on the call log.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}