The Three-Legged Stool

MCP, skills, code mode — how agents access capability

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Contents · APRIL 2026

In this issue.

Preface On the Three Legs Laurie Voss ran 500 evaluations. The MCP-vs-skills debate resolved wit… p. 01

From the Editor · APRIL 2026

Not versus. Plus. The three mechanisms sit on different legs of the same stool.

The Twitter war between MCP and skills evangelists, resolved. Laurie Voss's data: correctness is a wash; cost and latency are not. The real answer underneath is code mode — letting the agent write TypeScript against a type definition and run it in a sandboxed isolate. WIRE maps all three onto one composition layer.

Three legs. Not a war.

The MCP leg — when you want it, when you don’t
The skills leg — short beats long, and why
The code-mode leg — search plus execute, the convergence point
The stool — composition, and the decision matrix
Field guide — picking legs per task

— Wire Editorial

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