The Core Distinction
Use skills when you need repeatable team workflows and MCP when the agent must touch live APIs — most 2026 setups use both. Skills are cheap procedural memory (SKILL.md); MCP is the standard bridge to GitHub, databases, and SaaS tools.
The HN debate in 2026 settled on hybrid: neither layer alone replaces the other.
Skills — Procedural Memory
What: Markdown playbooks with frontmatter, stored in repo or installed via npx skills add.
Best for:
- Code review checklists
- Release and deploy runbooks
- SEO/content formatting rules
- Security rules ("never commit .env")
Limits: Cannot call APIs without MCP, CLI, or Bash tools.
