Exercise: Map Your Connections

List every system your agent would need to reach to do the task you traced in Chapter 1.

For each, write down whether it's read, write, or both, and for writes, whether the action is reversible.

Run the connections prompt. Pay particular attention to question 3, narrow capabilities are safer and easier to describe well.

Identify the two or three connections that deliver most of the value. Sketch what a first version using only those would do.

Ask your engineering team which of your systems already have an MCP server available and which would need one built. That answer reshapes your timeline.