Tool Design & MCP Integration
Stop stuffing context into prompts. Build tools Claude can call.
8 lessons 3 phases intermediate
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why this workshop
who it's for.
Developers who finished W2 and want to build MCP tools Claude can call instead of stuffing context into prompts.
exam coverage
Maps to Domain 2 (Tool Design & MCP Integration), 18% of the CCA – Foundations exam.
what you'll build
what you walk away with.
- 01 A refactor brief documenting what tools the reviewer actually needs.
- 02 A minimal MCP server (stdio) with a ping tool — the scaffold everything else builds on.
- 03 A get_file_contents tool with sandbox path enforcement and structured errors (isError + errorCategory + isRetryable) on every error path.
- 04 A list_changed_files tool that parses unified diffs into structured file metadata.
- 05 A get_blame tool that runs git blame against fixture history and returns per-line commit data.
- 06 A .mcp.json that wires the MCP server into Claude Code with env-var expansion for secrets and a fixtures-catalog MCP resource.
- 07 A reviewer configured with built-in tools (web search, code execution) alongside custom ones.
- 08 A tool-driven reviewer that calls list_changed_files → get_file_contents → get_blame instead of stuffing the diff.
curriculum
8 lessons across 3 phases.
phase A · MCP foundations 3 lessons
- 01 Why MCP
- 02 First MCP Server
- 03 get_file_contents
phase B · Tool library 3 lessons
- 04 list_changed_files
- 05 get_blame
- 06 Tool Distribution via .mcp.json
phase C · Integration 2 lessons
- 07 Built-in Tools
- 08 Migrate the Reviewer
prerequisites
what you need before you start.
- Completed W2 (or equivalent)
- The workshop reads src/review.ts as its starting state. reviewWithRetry() and reviewWithCritic() must be present.
- Node.js 22+
- Same stack as W1/W2 — pnpm workspaces, tsx, TypeScript.
- git
- The get_blame tool shells out to git. Standard install — brew install git or system git.
start
how to start.
Once Claude Code is set up, tell it “start the tools-mcp workshop” and it clones the project and queues the first lesson.
New here? The
getting-started guide
walks you through installing the lwc CLI and the Claude Code
plugin once — everything you need before that line works.
the series