2 min lesson
Tools, terminal and MCP
Use the lesson to respond to this: "Agent needs to read rows from your production Postgres. What gives it that reach?" Keep the answer plain.
Step 1 of 3
Tools are reach, not authority. Some live in your terminal; some come from an MCPModel Context Protocol. A standard that lets an AI agent pull in context from outside the repo, like Jira tickets or internal docs. Press Enter for the full definition. (Model Context Protocol) server outside the repo. Terminal access lets Agent prove a change locally. MCP connects it to docs, databases, issue trackers or internal services. Both need a boundary around what may run automatically and what waits for you.
Interactive diagram. Tab through its regions; each focused region shows its detail in the panel below.
Pick the narrowest layer that answers the question.