Why I Built an MCP Server SDK in Bash (and What It Taught Me)

This talk is about the path — not the tool.

While building an MCP server in Bash, I ended up understanding more than I expected

• How I discovered JSON-RPC when going for MCP server

• The difference between CLI vs stdio — and why it matters

• The MCP server flow

• Where clean code helps — and where it doesn’t

This is for anyone who wants to understand how systems talk, without hiding behind a framework. Doesn’t matter what language you use — the idea is to see things as they are.

• Difference between cli vs stdio

• Understand how JSON-RPC works

• See a working MCP server in Bash

• Know how to build and extend your own