MCP Dev Summit North America

The AI agent ecosystem is fragmenting into competing paradigms, each promising to be the future of how AI systems interact with the world. Skills are simple markdown local workflows using scripts, MCP provides structured tool access across platforms, and Code Mode solves Context bloat problems by executing MCP Tools as code. Most people think these are competing paradigms. They are not.

This talk cuts through the hype and developer frustration to examine what these approaches actually enable, how they overlap, and how do they complete each other.

**Key Learnings**

- Clear mental model explaining the concepts behind Skills, MCP, and Code Mode: what each actually does vs. marketing claims
- How these paradigms complement rather than compete: practical patterns for combining them (Skills in MCP Servers!)
- Decision framework: when to reach for each approach based on your use case, and a map of in which MCP Client each concept is already implemented
- Where the ecosystem is heading and how to future-proof your architectural choices