Why Build a Local MCP Server (And How to Do It in 15 Minutes)

I've been working with MCP servers for a few months now. If you're not familiar, MCP (Model Context Protocol) is Anthropic's open standard for connecting AI models to external tools and data sources. Think of it as the API layer between an LLM and the stuff it can actually do. There are already a bunch of prebuilt MCP servers out there. Ones that connect to GitHub, Slack, Google Drive, databases, you name it. You can plug them into Claude Desktop or VS Code and start using them immediately. So...