What Microsoft Learned Building An MCP Server
Techstrong.IT, Monday, February 23rd, 2026
Despite their similarities, an MCP Server is not an API Gateway, Microsoft engineers advise. It can do so much more, so let it. Slapping a protocol wrapper over an internal API may be a tempting shortcut to quickly build a MCP server, but the end product may only flummox an agent by offering too many choices, which would lead to context confusion, and subpar results
Programming for the agents requires a different workflow, a different way of engineering, and even a different way of thinking, advised a recent post from a program team at Microsoft. The post was authored by Microsoft technical program manager Pieter de Bruin, senior program manager Eric Imasogie, and principal software engineering manager Tianqi Zhang.
The post shared the lessons they learned from building an MCP server for Visual Studio to help developers work through new tasks.
'We are sharing not just what was built, but why the decisions we made mattered and what surprised us on this journey,' the authors write.