Willison Documents MCP's Rough Setup in Claude, ChatGPT

Simon Willison wired a custom MCP server into Claude and ChatGPT, and doing so "can take quite a few steps," per his July 29 TIL. The walkthrough covers only the consumer chat interfaces of both products, not the developer APIs or CLI harnesses where MCP already has a track record.

Willison doesn't itemize what those steps involve, just that there are enough of them to notice. That summary judgment is the finding, per the TIL.

MCP's ergonomics are tuned for developer harnesses, not chat products, per Willison's write-up. Anyone planning a distribution strategy that counts on end users attaching an MCP server themselves needs to know that friction exists first.

If it takes an experienced builder like Willison this many steps, casual users aren't going to manage it alone. Watch whether Anthropic or OpenAI ship a simpler in-app connection flow before betting on end users wiring up MCP servers themselves.