MCP has solved a critical problem: giving AI agents access to external tools and data. But access alone isn't enough. An agent with a database tool can still write terrible queries. An agent with a deployment tool can still push unsafe changes. The gap isn't access. It's expertise. Agent Skills are a lightweight format for encoding the domain knowledge agents need to use tools well. A common misconception is that Skills replace MCP. They don't. MCP provides capabilities: live connections to real systems. Skills provide knowledge: patterns to follow, mistakes to avoid, conventions a team considers non-negotiable. Skills ensure an agent does things right. MCP ensures it does real things. You need both. In this talk, I'll show how they work together through real examples. You'll see agents that call tools with the right arguments, handle edge cases, and recover from errors like an experienced developer would. As the creator of Apollo MCP Server and Apollo Skills, I've built on both sides of this equation and will share the challenges of shipping both: distributing them together, keeping them in sync, and evaluating if they still add value as models get smarter.
