XS ◾ public/uploads/rules/mcp servers-for-context/rule (PR from TinaCMS)

public/uploads/rules/mcp-servers-for-context/rule.mdx

@@ -7,24 +7,26 @@ categories:
 authors:
   - title: Michael Qiu
     url: 'https://ssw.com.au/people/michael-qiu'
+  - title: Eddie Kranz
+    url: 'https://ssw.com.au/people/eddie-kranz'
 related:
   - rule: public/uploads/rules/mcp-server/rule.mdx
   - rule: public/uploads/rules/utilize-back-pressure-for-agents/rule.mdx
 guid: 88c66f96-8b4d-45b1-bb2a-794629c28304
-seoDescription: Discover SSW's recommended MCP servers to enhance your AI coding assistants. Learn when to use MCP integrations vs. built-in agent capabilities for optimal development workflows.
+seoDescription: Discover SSW's recommended MCP servers and skills to enhance your AI coding assistants. Learn when to use MCP integrations vs. skills vs. built-in agent capabilities for optimal development workflows.
 created: 2026-01-29T03:54:26.321Z
 createdBy: Michael Qiu
 createdByEmail: MichaelQiu@ssw.com.au
-lastUpdated: 2026-01-30T09:34:13.671Z
-lastUpdatedBy: Chloe
-lastUpdatedByEmail: chloelin@ssw.com.au
+lastUpdated: 2026-02-06T06:44:06.469Z
+lastUpdatedBy: Michael Qiu
+lastUpdatedByEmail: MichaelQiu@ssw.com.au
 ---
 
-Here are SSW's recommended MCP servers for enhancing your AI coding assistants with additional context and capabilities.
+Here are the recommended MCP servers for enhancing AI coding assistants with additional context and capabilities, plus guidance on when to use skills as a lighter-weight alternative.
 
 <endIntro />
 
-## When You Don't Need MCP
+## When you don't need MCP
 
 Modern AI coding agents are excellent at generating impromptu code and CLI commands on the fly. For many common tasks, you don't need an MCP server because agents already have built-in tools that handle these operations natively:
 
@@ -35,6 +37,56 @@ Modern AI coding agents are excellent at generating impromptu code and CLI comma
 
 MCP servers become valuable when you need **persistent, specialized integrations** - such as connecting to databases, searching with specific APIs, or interacting with platforms like GitHub in a structured way.
 
+## Skills as an alternative
+
+Skills (also known as slash commands) are another way to extend AI coding assistants. Unlike MCP servers which provide tool access to external systems, skills inject specialized prompts and workflows that guide the AI's behavior for specific tasks.
+
+### When to use Skills vs MCP Servers
+
+Use **Skills** when you need to guide the AI's behavior without external access:
+
+* When working with a proprietary or domain-specific language (DSL) or internal framework that is unlikely to be well-represented in the AI's training data
+* Standardizing commit message formats
+* Enforcing code review checklists
+* Following team coding conventions
+* Generating boilerplate with specific patterns
+
+Use **MCP Servers** when you need to connect to external systems:
+
+* Querying a live database
+* Interacting with GitHub Issues/PRs
+* Searching external APIs (e.g. Brave Search)
+* Running browser automation
+
+### Best practices for Skills
+
+* **Use skills for workflow standardization** - When you want consistent outputs like commit messages, PR descriptions, or code following specific patterns
+* **Keep skills focused** - Each skill should do one thing well rather than trying to handle multiple scenarios
+* **Prefer skills for prompt injection** - If you just need to guide the AI's approach or provide context without external system access, skills are simpler to set up than MCPs
+* **Combine with MCP when needed** - Skills and MCP servers work well together. Use skills to define the workflow and MCP servers to provide the data access
+
+### Example: Claude Code custom slash commands
+
+Claude Code allows you to create custom slash commands by adding markdown files to your project's `.claude/commands/` directory:
+
+<boxEmbed
+  body={<>
+    ```markdown
+    Review this code for:
+    - Security vulnerabilities
+    - Performance issues
+    - Adherence to our team's coding standards
+    - Test coverage gaps
+
+    Provide actionable feedback with specific line references.
+    ```
+  </>}
+  figurePrefix="good"
+  figure="Review skill within Claude Code at `.claude/commands/review.md`"
+/>
+
+This can then be invoked with `/project:review` in Claude Code.
+
 ## Recommended MCP Servers
 
 * [GitHub MCP](https://github.com/github/github-mcp-server) - Allows AI tools to directly connect to GitHub's platform, giving them the ability to read repositories and code files, manage issues and PRs, analyze code, and automate workflows.
@@ -76,7 +128,7 @@ Location:
 }
 ```
 
-## Further Reading
+## Further reading
 
 * [Official MCP Documentation](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/docs/getting-started/intro)
 * [MCP Servers Repository](https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers) - Official collection of reference MCP server implementations