Maximizing MCP: Boost Dev Productivity, Web Scraping & Ableton Live | thunderLAB
Are You Really Getting the Most Out of MCP? My Latest Productivity Hack
The MCP (AI Communication Protocol) has become a hot topic in developer circles. For me, it’s more than just another tool; it’s something I weave into both my daily workflow and even my hobbies to stay productive. Want to level-up your own MCP game? Here are a few lessons from my recent experiments.
Development + MCP: Where Context7 Meets the Docs
Every developer knows the pain of adopting a new framework or maintaining legacy code. While building this very blog with Remix, I wrestled with official docs more than once.
That’s when Context7 became my lifesaver. It pulls in the latest framework knowledge on the fly and instantly boosted my productivity.
Context7, however, isn’t a silver bullet. I’m now building a new frontend with Astro, and even with Context7 I sometimes get stuck. Then I came across an intriguing tip in a dev video: “break the official docs into Cursor rules.” Haven’t tried it yet, but I will the next time things get hairy. Bottom line? AI is great, but pairing it with the fundamentals—official docs—gets you further.
Web Scraping: Beyond Playwright, Enter exa
For dynamic sites, Playwright and Selenium remain powerhouses. Still, I was surprised how efficient exa + MCP can be.
When you’re tackling heavy-duty scraping, stick with Playwright or Selenium. But for mid-sized jobs, the exa-and-MCP combo (especially inside Cursor) feels lighter, faster, and needs almost no setup. Give it a spin for simpler automations.
Bonus: Running an MCP Server in Ableton Live
My other passion is music production. I recently plugged an MCP server into my Ableton Live workflow just to see what would happen.
Verdict? It’s a solid creative assistant—great for sparking chord progressions or melody ideas. Yet seasoned producers may still move faster with hands-on control; AI suggestions can be hit or miss. Even so, the experiment was eye-opening, and I’ll keep testing.
MCP is becoming a cross-disciplinary productivity booster. I’ll keep sharing my trials (and errors!) on the blog. How are you using MCP? Let’s swap ideas and grow together!