MCP Servers Demystified: Wiring Your Code Into Copilot, Claude, and Custom Agents
The Model Context Protocol has quickly become the standard way to connect AI tools to the systems developers actually work with.
Kevin Grossnicklaus walks through MCP from a working developer's point of view: what it is, where it fits, and how to design servers that hold up across GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Claude Desktop, custom agents, and Microsoft-based AI applications.
Using examples in C# and TypeScript, Kevin covers the architecture, tool design patterns, hosting tradeoffs, and security decisions that separate a quick demo from a production-ready MCP server.
You'll walk away with:
- How MCP servers connect GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Claude Desktop, and custom agent apps to real systems.
- When to use a local stdio server versus a hosted streaming HTTP server.
- How to design MCP tools that developers and agents can actually understand.
- How MCP differs from a traditional API, and when an MCP wrapper makes sense.
- Security patterns for delegated access, scoped authorization, and production use.
- Where commercial MCP servers save time, and where custom still wins.
For developers, architects, technical leads, and IT leaders working with AI-enabled developer tooling.
Presented by Kevin Grossnicklaus, President & CEO at ArchitectNow, a Microsoft Solutions Partner.