mcp-discovery

The public MCP Registry ships hundreds of ready-made stdio servers (filesystems, databases, browsers, media processing, developer utilities, cloud APIs, SaaS integrations, …). This skill is how you reach one when the session is genuinely missing a capability.

It is a fallback, not a first step. Discovery costs a tool_search to load the deferred tools, a query, an approval, and an install, spend that only when it buys a capability you do not have.

When to use

• An available tool, a project script or test, or a few lines of local code cannot do the job.
• The task needs an external service, database, or protocol client that this session has no access to.
• You would otherwise install a package or reimplement a well-known converter or client by hand.

When not to use

• Ordinary work: writing and editing files, reading fixtures, running repo commands, and checking your own output. Do those directly.
• A capability an already-loaded tool covers, even partially, try it first.
• A near-miss row in a result list. A scored match is a suggestion; the missing capability is what decides.

Workflow