Mcp on René Zander | AI Automation Consultant

MCP Servers Explained: What Model Context Protocol Does

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 10:00:00 +0200

If you have heard “MCP” thrown around in the last year without getting a clear answer on what it is, here is the explainer that stays grounded in what it actually does, not what the marketing decks claim.

I run an MCP server in production. It exposes my task manager to every LLM client I use, daily, as a systemd service on a Debian VPS. That constant use is where this explainer comes from. No conference slides, no speculation about where the protocol is heading in five years. Just what MCP is, what it replaces, and when you should bother writing one.

MCP vs Custom API Integration: When Each One Actually Wins

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +0200

Every team I talk to that has shipped one Claude integration asks the same question within a month: should this tool be an MCP server, or should it stay as a tool definition inside our app? The answer gets framed as a technology debate, but it’s really a question about how many places you plan to use the same capability.

Here is the short version. For about 90% of teams, a custom API integration written directly into your Claude code is the right call. The Model Context Protocol is the right call when you need the same tool surface across multiple LLM clients, when you are building a reusable internal platform, or when you are shipping tools for other people to hit from their own assistants. The rest of this guide walks through why, with the cost model and a decision tree at the end.

Claude Code SDK Agents: Build Production Agents Without the Loop

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 12:00:00 +0200

Most “build an agent with Claude” tutorials hand you a while-loop around client.messages.create, a hand-rolled tool dispatcher, and a promise that you’ll wire up file reads and shell execution yourself. That works. It also means you spend two weeks rebuilding the same plumbing that Claude Code already ships with.

The Claude Code SDK, sometimes called the Claude Agent SDK, is the shortcut. Same runtime as the claude CLI, exposed as a library in TypeScript and Python, plus a print mode you can call from a bash cron job. You get file tools, bash, MCP client, subagents, hooks, and permission modes without writing any of it.

Build MCP Server TypeScript: Complete Tutorial with Claude

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 11:00:00 +0100

Most teams do not need a custom MCP server. If you have one LLM app, one integration, and one codebase, calling the vendor API directly is faster to ship and easier to debug. The moment you have two Claude surfaces (Claude Desktop plus Claude Code, or Claude Code plus Cursor) hitting the same internal system, you stop duplicating tool code. That is when you build MCP server TypeScript projects worth maintaining.

Systemd Services for AI Servers: Production Setup on Linux

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 07:00:00 +0100

I run a TickTick MCP server, a Telegram bot that routes through Claude Opus, and ten scheduled AI agents on a single Debian VPS. None of them run in Docker. All of them run as systemd services or systemd timers.

This is the setup guide for running systemd services for AI servers the way I actually do it in production. Unit files, logs, timers, resource limits, and the security hardening that matters. No container orchestration, no Kubernetes, no Docker Compose YAML. Just systemd, because for single-host AI workloads it is the right tool.