Model Context Protocol (MCP) has unleashed a wave of innovation in the AI world by bridging large language models (LLMs) with the systems we rely on every day. You may have already used an MCP server to connect your coding agent to library docs, databases, or issue trackers. But what’s happening under the hood?
In this talk, we’ll dig into the guts of MCP servers and explore the key protocol primitives that make everything click. From tool calls, sampling, prompts, elicitations, and resources, to the subtle design choices that can make or break your developer experience. For example, how a well-implemented MCP server might pause before deleting your database, asking for confirmation instead of firing off a destructive action.
Bill Maxwell is a Software Engineer at Obot.ai and a founding engineer of Rancher Labs, where he helped shape the Kubernetes management platform Rancher. He has held roles spanning engineering, SRE, product, and field work—bridging the gap between building systems and helping users succeed with them.
