MCP Skills Discovery

Provides automatic access to comprehensive MCP server development, tool design, and testing skills.

When This Skill Activates

This skill auto-activates when you’re working with:

• Building MCP servers (TypeScript or Python)
• Designing MCP tools, resources, or prompts
• Choosing MCP transports (stdio, SSE, Streamable HTTP)
• Implementing JSON-RPC 2.0 over MCP
• Testing MCP servers with Inspector or automated tests
• Debugging MCP protocol or transport issues
• Publishing or deploying MCP servers

Available Skills

Quick Reference

The MCP category contains 3 specialized skills:

1. mcp-server-fundamentals – Architecture, transports, tools/resources/prompts primitives, SDK setup
2. mcp-tool-design – Tool naming, schemas, error handling, annotations, progressive disclosure
3. mcp-testing – Inspector, unit tests, integration tests, transport debugging, CI/CD

Load Full Category Details

For complete descriptions and workflows:

Read /skills/mcp/INDEX.md

This loads the full MCP category index with:

• Detailed skill descriptions
• Usage triggers for each skill
• Common workflow combinations
• Cross-references to related skills

Load Specific Skills

Load individual skills as needed:

Server architecture and setup

Read /skills/mcp/mcp-server-fundamentals.md

Tool design and best practices

Read /skills/mcp/mcp-tool-design.md

Testing and debugging

Read /skills/mcp/mcp-testing.md

Common Workflows

New MCP Server

Sequence: Fundamentals -> Tool Design -> Testing

Read /skills/mcp/mcp-server-fundamentals.md # Architecture, transport, SDK Read /skills/mcp/mcp-tool-design.md # Design tool interfaces Read /skills/mcp/mcp-testing.md # Test with Inspector, CI

Adding Tools to Existing Server

Sequence: Tool Design -> Testing

Read /skills/mcp/mcp-tool-design.md # Naming, schemas, errors Read /skills/mcp/mcp-testing.md # Test new tools

Debugging MCP Issues

Sequence: Testing -> Fundamentals

Read /skills/mcp/mcp-testing.md # Inspector, transport debugging Read /skills/mcp/mcp-server-fundamentals.md # Lifecycle, capabilities

Integration with Other Skills

MCP skills commonly combine with:

API skills (discover-api):

• MCP servers wrapping REST or GraphQL APIs
• Authentication for MCP tool backends

Testing skills (discover-testing):

• Comprehensive test strategies
• Contract testing patterns

Infrastructure skills (discover-infra, discover-cloud):

• Deploying MCP servers
• Scaling HTTP transports

Progressive Loading

This gateway skill (~170 lines, ~1.5K tokens) enables progressive loading:

• Level 1: Gateway loads automatically (you’re here now)
• Level 2: Load category INDEX.md (~2.5K tokens) for full overview
• Level 3: Load specific skills (~2-3K tokens each) as needed

Total context: 1.5K + 2.5K + skill(s) = 4-8K tokens vs 12K+ for everything.

Quick Start Examples

“Build an MCP server”: Read /skills/mcp/mcp-server-fundamentals.md

“Design MCP tools for my API”: Read /skills/mcp/mcp-tool-design.md

“Test my MCP server”: Read /skills/mcp/mcp-testing.md

“Debug why my MCP tool isn’t showing up”: Read /skills/mcp/mcp-testing.md

Next Steps: Run Read <cc-polymath-root>/skills/mcp/INDEX.md to see full category details, or load specific skills using the commands above.