Simon Willison’s Weblog

How I Use Every Claude Code Feature (via) Useful, detailed guide from Shrivu Shankar, a Claude Code power user. Lots of tips for both individual Claude Code usage and configuring it for larger team projects.

I appreciated Shrivu's take on MCP:

The "Scripting" model (now formalized by Skills) is better, but it needs a secure way to access the environment. This to me is the new, more focused role for MCP.

Instead of a bloated API, an MCP should be a simple, secure gateway that provides a few powerful, high-level tools:

• download_raw_data(filters...)
• take_sensitive_gated_action(args...)
• execute_code_in_environment_with_state(code...)

In this model, MCP's job isn't to abstract reality for the agent; its job is to manage the auth, networking, and security boundaries and then get out of the way.

This makes a lot of sense to me. Most of my MCP usage with coding agents like Claude Code has been replaced by custom shell scripts for it to execute, but there's still a useful role for MCP in helping the agent access secure resources in a controlled way.