What is the Model Context Protocol (MCP), and how do you design good tools for an agent?
MCP standardized how agents connect to tools and data, but tool design is what determines reliability. The signal is knowing what MCP actually standardizes and the principles behind a tool the model can call correctly from its description alone.
Updated Sep 2026 · Grounded in real GenAI, LLM, and AI/ML engineering interview loops and written to a senior-engineer editorial bar.
MCP standardized how agents connect to tools and data, but tool design is what determines reliability. The signal is knowing what MCP actually standardizes and the principles behind a tool the model can call correctly from its description alone.
Lead with where the obvious approach breaks, because that is the judgment they are screening for — most candidates jump straight to the happy path and lose the room.
Then walk the failure back through the pipeline in order, naming the one metric the customer's exec sponsor actually cares about before you propose the fix.