Files

T

Frank 02883d3ed2 docs: rebuild KB in OKF v0.1 with live-verified facts

Copy of the legacy ~/.pi/agent/docs tree rebuilt as the command-center
knowledge base: concept files promoted to path identity, index listings
stripped of frontmatter, all wikilinks/relative links resolved, every
checkable claim verified against the live fleet (Dankserver = Ryzen 7
7700X + RTX 3090; Strix Halo is Dankclaw), unverifiable claims tagged.
kb-lint exits 0.

2026-08-28 07:57:13 -07:00

3.7 KiB

Raw Blame History

type, title, description, tags, verified, timestamp, resource

type

title

description

Model Context Protocol (MCP) for Web Research

Model Context Protocol (MCP) is the open standard for connecting an AI model to external tools and data. Use it to give your agent search, page fetching, and database access without wiring each provider by hand.

MCP uses a client-server model. The agent is an MCP client. Each capability runs in an MCP server. The agent calls the tools that the server exposes.

The Linux Foundation hosts the project. The spec lives at modelcontextprotocol.io.

Transports

MCP servers use one of two current transports:

stdio — the server runs as a child process. Good for local, single-client use.
Streamable HTTP — a single HTTP POST endpoint. Good for remote or multi-client use.

The older HTTP+SSE transport still works for compatibility. Clients auto-detect it.

The Model

graph LR
    A[Agent / MCP client] --> B[Search server]
    A --> C[Fetch server]
    A --> D[Database server]
    A --> E[Filesystem server]

Official Reference Servers

The modelcontextprotocol/servers repository ships seven reference servers:

Server	Purpose
Fetch	Fetch and convert a web page
Filesystem	Read and write local files
Git	Read and manipulate Git repositories
Memory	Knowledge-graph persistent memory
Sequential Thinking	Reflective problem solving
Time	Answer time-related queries
Everything	Test and demo server

Search Servers

The official Brave Search MCP server (brave-search-mcp-server) exposes brave_web_search and related tools. It needs a Brave API key.
Community SearXNG MCP servers connect any SearXNG instance to MCP. They work with your self-hosted instance and need no API key.
Crawl4AI ships a built-in MCP bridge in its Docker image that turns crawls into MCP tools.

Why It Matters Here

SmolAgents loads MCP tools with ToolCollection.from_mcp().
CrewAI integrates MCP through MCPServerStdio, MCPServerHTTP, and MCPServerSSE.
Browser Use exposes MCP via com.browser-use.
Qwen3 does agentic tool calling through the Qwen-Agent framework.

With MCP, the search, fetch, and synthesis steps in this section share one connection standard. The agent does not depend on one vendor's format.

Run It Securely

Follow these rules for a self-hosted MCP server:

Bind to 127.0.0.1 for local use.
Prefer stdio transport for a local agent.
Use Streamable HTTP with auth only for remote use.
Validate the Origin header on HTTP servers. A mismatch must return HTTP 403. A bad check lets a remote site attack a local server.
Treat tool descriptions as untrusted. They can carry prompt injection.

Citations

MCP specification: https://modelcontextprotocol.io
Official MCP reference servers: https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers
Brave Search MCP server: https://github.com/brave/brave-search-mcp-server
SearXNG MCP server (community): https://github.com/aicrafted/searxng-mcp
SmolAgents repository: https://github.com/huggingface/smolagents
Crawl4AI repository: https://github.com/unclecode/crawl4ai

3.7 KiB Raw Blame History