alt.hn

7/21/2026 at 4:06:20 PM

Show HN: An MCP server that turns async-work practices into tools

by benbalter

7/22/2026 at 2:58:39 AM

The readme is so thick with breathless LLMisms that it makes one wonder what is the point. That's a bit sad because the book's website and blog appear interesting, the author can write. Still: shall I spend 10 bucks by buying and reading the book, or by consuming tokens on LLMs that read it?

by polotics

7/22/2026 at 12:08:15 PM

> the book's website and blog appear interesting, the author can write

I'll take the compliment!

README was 100% intended for robots, not humans (book is 100% for humans, FWIW). I'd be impressed if you can spend $10 on tokens interacting with the MCP. That's one reason why I went with an MCP over a skill. A lot of the logic is offline/token free.

by benbalter

7/22/2026 at 4:42:44 AM

How does `triage_sync_vs_async` handle team-specific norms — fixed rubric, or does it lean on the model's judgment from context?

by taevirus

7/22/2026 at 12:05:22 PM

Fixed rubric. It works on regex matching across interpersonal tension, active incident, sensitivity, and ambiguity. If a pattern matches, it weights sync over async.

by benbalter

7/22/2026 at 2:56:48 AM

This has been very inspiring for a MCP design novice like me; I can now implement executable tools, reference knowledge, and user workflows in my own MCP.

by znhskzj

7/22/2026 at 12:11:02 PM

This was my first "real" MCP server (previously I made an MCP server to control a Furby for GitHub Universe) and I learned a lot. A few things I learned (not an expert):

* Tool vs. Resource: Does it compute or does it serve * Prompts -> Tools * Deterministic vs. Probabilistic is a choice per tool

by benbalter

7/22/2026 at 2:06:20 AM

So nice to see a new library written in JavaScript instead of TypeScript.

by mjhea0

7/22/2026 at 1:49:06 PM

[flagged]

by kalpitrathore

7/22/2026 at 2:28:20 AM

The "book as an MCP server" framing is the part that interests me. I run a small MCP server myself (semantic search over government documents), and the thing I keep noticing is that the interface changes what people ask — nobody asks a PDF "what should I do in my situation," but they'll ask a tool that. Shipping specialized tools (draft_decision_doc etc.) over one generic ask_the_book tool also seems like the right call — clearer intent per call, less context spent on tool descriptions. I noticed you went with keyword search over a summary corpus plus citations rather than embedding the full text — curious whether that was a licensing decision (keeping the manuscript out of the package) or you found summaries-with-citations just work better for this kind of prescriptive content than semantic retrieval over the full prose?

by suzuridev

7/22/2026 at 12:16:07 PM

Partially licensing, but also tokens + efficiency. As noted above, the book is written for humans (anecdotes, examples, etc.). Robots just need the facts and can extrapolate. If I were building a hosted service, a custom LLM with embeddings would probably beat both approaches.

by benbalter

7/22/2026 at 3:42:47 AM

[flagged]

by songhonglei1985

7/22/2026 at 6:07:41 AM

[dead]

by heroncoder