Hello, happy Monday, and welcome to the fifth issue of VibeCoding.sh 🧘‍♂️

This is my first issue focused on one topic, and for good reason, that topic is MCP and it has been quickly becoming a core part of AI coding workflows. If you don’t know what MCP is, or you do know what it is but haven’t used it yet, by the end of this newsletter you should be ready to rock.

And on that note, I’ll keep the intro short and sweet this week, now let’s get to the good stuff.

First things first - what is MCP

MCP stands for Model Context Protocol, but yes, that’s a mouthful so it’s referred to as MCP pretty much everywhere. I’ve always thought it could use a better name because when you hear “Model Context Protocol” you have no idea what it is. My idea for a better name is, “agent intelligence” which might give you a better idea.

In short, MCP is a way to connect AI agents to a system where data is stored. In many cases this means connecting AI agents to your own computer. While things like RAG allow you to pass specific data into an LLM, MCP allows LLMs to access data that is constantly changing, and allows AI agents to interact directly with your computer.

If you want to do a deeper dive, I wrote an article on Medium about MCP when it first launched that will give you all the dets.

Okay, so now that you understand what MCP is, the rest of this issue is going to be dedicated to how you can leverage it in your AI coding workflow.

MCP: Zero to Hero from Windsurf

If you use Windsurf then I would highly recommend watching this video tutorial they shared last week going from zero knowledge about MCP, to hero. It’s only seven minutes long and honestly is one of the best pieces of content out there right now about how to get started with MCP in the context of AI coding.

You can view the tweet I shared above here and if you want to jump to the video and just dive in on You Tube - here’s the link.

Cline releases MCP Marketplace

What makes MCP so interesting (at least to me) is the sheer amount of servers that are out there now. This makes MCP incredibly extensible and we’re starting to hit a fever pitch where you can use MCP with almost any piece of software or database system you use daily.

Last week Cline doubled-down on MCP by releasing an MCP Marketplace, and I don’t think there’s anything else like it online, in short - it’s pretty darn cool.

Here’s a bit more about the marketplace in Cline’s own word because who better to explain it than them, right!?!

“
Here's what we built: a clean, simple interface where you can:

• Browse available MCP servers

• See ratings, downloads, and descriptions

• Install any MCP with a single click

• Get automatic setup and configuration

No more JSON wrangling. No more dependency hell. Just click and let Cline handle the rest.

You can read all about Cline’s MCP Marketplace in this blog post.

Melvin’s Ultimate MCP Tutorial

Melvin is without a doubt one of my favorite content creators right now in the AI coding space. Seriously, if you don’t follow Melvin yet on X, do it now - @donvito. Last week Melvin shared the ultimate MCP tutorial, and yes - that means it covers using MCP in Cursor, Windsurf and Claude.

Even if you’re already using MCP, there are so many nuggets in this thread I think everyone should read it. You’ll also see how powerful MCP can be when you’re using it with an AI coding tool like Cursor or Windsurf, it’s available directly from the AI coding panel which means it can very quickly become part of your flow state, i.e. vibe coding approved 🧘‍♂️

So you want to build your own MCP Server?

Okay, so after reading about how to get rocking with all the MCP Servers out there, you might be getting the bug to build your own. Well, not too shocking - Anthropic has some pretty stellar documentation on how to do this.

Simply follow the tutorial here and you’ll be building your own MCP Server before you know it. Oh and if you do this, please make sure to let me know and I’ll happily RT on X and might even include it in my next newsletter 👀

Bonus content - Apple MCP

My bonus content this week is of course, MCP-related, and it’s a really awesome MCP Server that allows you to give LLMs access to apps like Contacts, Notes, and iMessage.

Personally I thinks there’s probably some really interesting applications for this just with the Notes app given how many people use notes for, well, all their notes. Connecting all the notes you’ve taken over the years with an LLM has some pretty interesting applications and my guess is someone will come out with something leveraging this integration specifically before we know it.

Okay, and that’s a wrap for VibeCoding.sh Issue #5. If you enjoy reading my newsletter please share it with others on X, LinkedIn, Facebook, or whatever social network you’re active on.

Thanks for reading and remember, keep calm and vibe on 🧘‍♂️