In this episode of The Context Window, Tracy, Brandon, and AD tackle the spicy question everyone is asking right now: are MCPs actually dead, or are we just misusing them? They unpack the tension between MCPs and good old CLIs, talk about when you really need a protocol versus when a simple script will do, and why over-abstracting everything into an MCP can wreck your context window instead of helping it.

From there, they get into security and observability, using the recent headlines about Claude Code being used in hacking campaigns as a jumping off point to talk about how all powerful tools eventually get used for both good and bad, and why better orchestration visibility is the real missing piece for enterprises. Then the crew reacts to the GPT 5.1 release, compares it with Claude and Gemini, pokes holes in benchmark charts, and shares how they actually choose models in their day to day work.

What you will learn:

- Why GPT 5.1 matters (and where it still falls short) compared to Claude, Gemini, and Kimi K2

- When to use MCPs vs plain old CLIs for agents and why “MCP everything” is a trap

- How Claude Code was actually used in a real hacking workflow, and what that reveals about AI safety & observability

- Why MCP is more like “USB-C for agents” and GraphQL is “MCP for APIs” and what that means for how we architect AI systems

- How different models really feel in practice: GPT vs Claude vs Gemini for coding, research, and creative work

- What today’s AI shifts mean for engineers’ jobs, workflows, and the tools we should actually be betting on over the next year

Tracy Lee on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyslee/

A.D. Slaton on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adslaton/

Brandon Mathis on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathisbrandon/

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