smcleod.net 👋

The personal blog of Sam McLeod. I write about AI, DevOps, Platform Engineering, and other geeky topics.
MCP Server Tool Context Usage

Stop Polluting Context - Let Users Disable Individual MCP Tools

If you’re building MCP servers, you should be adding the ability to disable individual tools.

August 26, 2025 · 4 min · 833 words · Sam McLeod
Security middleware blocking potentially malicious content

MCP DevTools

MCP DevTools - The one tool that replaced the 10-15 odd NodeJS/Python/Rust MCP servers I had running at any given to for agentic coding tools with a single server that provides tools I consider useful for agents when coding. The Problem The MCP ecosystem has grown rapidly, but I found myself managing many separate servers, each often running multiple times for every MCP client I had running, not to mention the ever growing memory and CPU consumption of the many NodeJS or Python processes. ...

August 18, 2025 · 9 min · 1822 words · Sam McLeod
Agentic Coding Adoption Cost Cycle

Agentic Coding Adoption Cost Cycle

July 16, 2025 · 0 min · 0 words · Sam McLeod

Agentic Coding Workflow & Cline Demo

Square Peg hosted event on June 20, 2025 where I demonstrated a basic version of my daily Agentic Coding workflow using Cline and MCP tools. What does it take to write enterprise-grade code in the AI-native era? Join Square Peg investors James Tynan and Grace Dalla-Bona for a live demo and Q&A session with three leading AI-native developers - Grant Gurvis, Listiarso Wastuargo, and Sam McLeod - and get a behind-the-curtain look at the workflows that enable them to ship faster, smarter, and cleaner code using tools like Cursor, Cline, and smolagents. ...

June 20, 2025 · 1 min · 92 words · Sam McLeod

Vibe Coding vs Agentic Coding

Picture this: A business leader overhears their engineering team discussing “vibe coding” and immediately imagines developers throwing prompts at ChatGPT until something works, shipping whatever emerges to production. The term alone—“vibe coding”—conjures images of seat-of-the-pants development that would make any CTO break out in a cold sweat. This misunderstanding is creating a real problem. Whilst vibe coding represents genuine creative exploration that has its place, the unfortunate terminology is causing some business leaders to conflate all AI-assisted / accelerated development with haphazard experimentation. I fear that engineers using sophisticated AI coding agents be it with advanced agentic coding tools like Cline to deliver production-quality solutions are finding their approaches questioned or dismissed entirely. ...

June 6, 2025 · 7 min · 1422 words · Sam McLeod
Agentic Coding Development Flow

My Plan, Document, Act, Review flow for Agentic Software Development

I follow a simple, yet effective flow for agentic coding that helps me to efficiently develop software using AI coding agents while keeping them on track, focused on the task at hand and ensuring they have access to the right tools and information. The flow is simple: Setup -> Plan -> Act -> Review and Iterate. Setup - Ensuring the effective agent rules and tools are enabled.s. Plan - Building a detailed plan based on your goals, requirements and ideation with the coding agent. Act - Perform the development tasks, in phases. Review and Iterate - Review the work, updating the plan and iterating as required. 🕵 Setup Ensure any directories or files you don’t want Cline to read are excluded by adding them to a .clineignore file in the root of your project. 🛠️ Tools The effective use of tools is critical to the success and cost effectiveness of agentic coding. The MCP Servers (tools) I frequently use are available here: sammcj/agentic-coding#mcp-servers ...

April 28, 2025 · 10 min · 2035 words · Sam McLeod
LLM Sampling Methods Comparison

Comprehensive Guide to LLM Sampling Parameters

Large Language Models (LLMs) like those used in Ollama don’t generate text deterministically - they use probabilistic sampling to select the next token based on the model’s prediction probabilities. How these probabilities are filtered and adjusted before sampling significantly impacts the quality of generated text. This guide explains the key sampling parameters and how they affect your model’s outputs, along with recommended settings for different use cases. Ollama Sampling Diagram Sampling Methods Comparison Example Ollama Sampling Settings Table Setting General Coding Coding Alt Factual/Precise Creative Writing Creative Chat min_p 0.05 0.05 0.9 0.1 0.05 0.05 temperature 0.7 0.2 0.2 0.3 1.0 0.85 top_p 0.9 0.9 1.0 0.8 0.95 0.95 mirostat 0 0 0 0 0 0 repeat_penalty 1.1 1.05 1.05 1.05 1.0 1.15 top_k 40 40 0* 0* 0 0 *For factual/precise use cases Some guides recommend Top K = 40, but Min P generally provides better adaptive filtering. Consider using Min P alone with a higher value (0.1) for most factual use cases. ...

April 25, 2025 · 19 min · 3960 words · Sam McLeod
Generative Agent State Diagram

Getting Started with Agentic Systems - Developer Learning Paths

As agentic systems become increasingly central to modern software development, many engineers are looking to build practical skills but don’t know where to start. This guide provides a short list of pre-reading/watching and hands-on training resources to help you get started with developing with AI agents. The focus is on practical implementation for tools and methods you’re likely to use in the workplace, so you can quickly gain experience and confidence in building AI powered and agentic systems. ...

April 16, 2025 · 4 min · 680 words · Sam McLeod
Productivity Flywheel

The Cost of Agentic Coding

Don’t ask yourself “What if my high performing engineers spent $2k/month on agentic coding?” …ask yourself why they (and others) aren’t - and what opportunities they’re missing as a result. ...

April 3, 2025 · 16 min · Sam McLeod

The Democratisation Paradox: What History Teaches Us About AI

Every technological revolution has triggered waves of anxiety about the obsolescence of human skills and professions. The current fears that AI will replace artists, eliminate writing jobs, render illustrators obsolete, and devalue creative work follow a well-established historical pattern that’s worth examining critically. The Democratisation Paradox When photography emerged in the 19th century, painters predicted the death of portraiture. When home cameras became accessible, professional photographers feared obsolescence. When smartphones put cameras in everyone’s pockets, the same concerns resurfaced 1 2 . Yet professional photography hasn’t vanished—it’s evolved. What actually occurred was a democratisation of image creation, while simultaneously elevating the appreciation for truly skilled work 3 . ...

March 23, 2025 · 9 min · 1811 words · Sam McLeod