Why this matters now

Enterprises want agents that don’t just chat—they follow procedures, use real tools, and leave an audit trail. Anthropic’s MCP provides the standard “port” for connecting Claude to systems, while Skills and Agent Skills capture your SOPs so work is consistent, safe and scalable.

Quick definitions

• MCP (Model Context Protocol): An open protocol that lets clients (like Claude Desktop and Claude Code) connect to MCP servers exposing tools, data resources and prompts.

• Skills: Reusable, procedure-like packages (instructions, files, prompts) that give Claude consistent abilities.

• Agent Skills: Skills formalised for portability and governance across teams and environments.

How MCP and Skills work together (conceptual model)

1. MCP servers expose tools (actions), resources (readable data/files) and prompts (parameterised tasks).

2. Claude connects to one or more servers (local or remote) and can call those capabilities securely.

3. Skills/Agent Skills orchestrate your SOPs: inputs → pre-checks → tool calls → post-checks → summary/logging.

Result: Faster, safer workflows with less glue code—and behaviour your teams can trust.

Step-by-step: Connect Claude to real tools via MCP

A) Claude Desktop → connect a local or remote MCP server

1. Open Settings → Developer → Model Context Protocol.

2. Add a server via JSON. Example:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "github": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["server.js"],
      "env": { "GITHUB_TOKEN": "${env:GITHUB_TOKEN}" }
    }
  }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop. The server’s tools/resources/prompts appear for use in chats or slash commands.

Tip: Run servers close to the systems they touch and scope tokens to least privilege.

B) Claude Code (terminal/IDE) → wire up enterprise servers

• Add servers via the client config JSON.

• Authenticate to remote servers (e.g., GitHub, Sentry, Postgres).

• Use Claude Code as an MCP server when needed.

• Execute MCP prompts as slash commands for repeatable tasks.

Minimal MCP server (Node) exposing a tool

// package.json: { "type": "module" }
// deps: "modelcontextprotocol"
import { McpServer } from "modelcontextprotocol";

const server = new McpServer({ name: "helpdesk", version: "1.0.0" });

server.tool("searchTickets", {
  schema: {
    type: "object",
    properties: { query: { type: "string" } },
    required: ["query"]
  },
  handler: async ({ query }) => {
    const results = await fetchTicketsFromJira(query); // your SDK call
    return { content: [{ type: "text", text: JSON.stringify(results) }] };
  }
});

server.listen();

Register this server in Claude Desktop/Code (see JSON above), then call it from a Skill that triages or escalates tickets.

A worked example: “Weekly release helper”

Goal: Automate release prep while keeping humans in the loop.

Inputs: release branch, service name, owner.

Steps (Skill):

1. Validate branch status via GitHub; check tests.

2. Generate release notes from merged PRs.

3. Create GitHub release; post Slack summary.

4. Open Jira change-record ticket; attach artefacts.

MCP elements: GitHub tool (list PRs, create release), CI/CD resource (artefacts), Slack tool (message).

Safeguards: Whitelisted repos only; human confirm before step 3; back-off on API rate limits; structured logs.

Enterprise best practices

• Least privilege: Scope tokens; prefer read-only; rotate secrets; store in a secret manager.

• Network boundaries: Keep sensitive servers private (VPN/VPC); restrict inbound ports.

• Idempotency & back-pressure: Guard concurrency; introduce retries with jitter; handle API 429/5xx.

• Auditability: Log requestId, tool name, input schema hash, user identity; redact secrets.

• Version everything: Treat Skills as code; peer review; CI checks with synthetic test incidents.

• Narrow, composable Skills: One job per Skill; use a router or orchestration Skill to combine.

Use-cases you can ship this quarter

• Engineering ops: Sentry → GitHub → Jira escalation; release notes; PR grooming.

• Data & analytics: SQL checks; KPI brief generation; lineage lookups.

• Customer operations: Refund eligibility checks; RAG + action workflows from CRM.

• Compliance: Control attestations; evidence collection from doc stores.

• Knowledge work: Literature scan → structured brief with citations and action list.

FAQs

How does Claude benefit from MCP integration?
MCP standardises how Claude discovers and calls external tools, prompts and resources via servers—reducing one-off integrations and unlocking a growing ecosystem.

What are best practices for using MCP with Claude?
Define narrow Skills; parameterise prompts; scope credentials; log every tool call; stage via feature flags; add human confirms on risky actions.

Can Claude’s Skills be customised by industry?
Yes. Package your SOPs—escalation, approvals, KYC checks—into Skills and bind them to regulated back-ends via MCP servers. Agent Skills help portability and governance across teams.

Is MCP widely supported?
Yes. Beyond Anthropic’s clients, MCP is an open standard with a growing ecosystem of servers and community contributions.

Next steps

Ready to operationalise MCP with Skills? Contact Generation Digital to design guardrailed agents, wire up priority tools, and pilot safely across your teams.