Building an MCP Server with 33 Tools: Lessons from Designing for Claude
SimpleSpacer97 · reddit · 2026-07-26
The author shares a deep dive into building an OAuth-protected MCP Server for a family fitness tracker, exposing 33 tools to Claude.
Core Philosophy: Intelligence doesn't live in the tool code. It lives in the descriptions, error messages, and deciding which problems go to the model versus the database.
Dictation Challenges: Because inputs arrive almost entirely via voice, the data lacks punctuation, bundles multiple intents per breath (e.g., meals and activities in one sentence), and suffers from audio buffering cutoffs. Designing for this messy, run-on input shape is the real work past the hello-world MCP tutorial.
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