Hey there ! Have you noticed we've moved past "text-only AI" into an era where agents actually get things done ? In the Anthropic ecosystem , Claude now handles tools more intelligently than just spitting out JSON . The secret lies in three pillars : Tool Use, the Model Context Protocol (MCP), and Skills.
The biggest pain for agent developers is "context pollution" . If you cram 100 tools into a prompt , you'll burn through tokens and the model will eventually get confused. To fix this , Anthropic introduced Skills — organized packages of instructions and scripts that Claude only loads when absolutely necessary.
The Core : Skills and MCP
Skills operate on a three-level loading system. First , it reads the YAML Frontmatter in the SKILL.md file to see if that skill fits the user's request. If it does , it loads the Markdown body and , only as a last resort , accesses linked scripts or assets. It’s essentially "lazy loading" for AI.
But what if you need to connect Claude to a database or Slack ? That’s where the Model Context Protocol (MCP) comes in. MCP is an open standard that acts as the "connective tissue" between the model and external data. While Skills handle the "how-to" locally , MCP solves the "who to talk to" universally.
Efficiency via PTC and Tool Search
Hehe... a brilliant move here is Programmatic Tool Calling (PTC). Instead of Claude requesting one tool at a time , it writes Python code to orchestrate multiple calls at once within a sandbox. This shrinks context usage from 200KB of raw data to just 1KB of useful insights.
For those managing hundreds of tools , the Tool Search Tool is a lifesaver ! It acts as an initial search tool (~500 tokens) that scans other available tools. This preserves nearly 95% of your context window for what really matters : the core reasoning of the task.
Security and Governance
You can't just hand over the keys to your system without safeguards , right ? The "Confused Deputy" risk — where an agent executes malicious orders from third-party content — is a real threat. Because of this , Claude Code follows a strict permission model (Deny -> Ask -> Allow) and runs code in OS-level sandboxes.
To wrap up , if you want to build something robust , focus on modular Skills and use MCP to expose your APIs. The future isn't one giant prompt ; it's a network of well-orchestrated micro-capabilities .
Sources:
- Anthropic Academy & API Docs
- Model Context Protocol Documentation
- Engineering Blog : Code Execution with MCP
- Claude Code Security Guides