Question library
Explained questions for the decisions developers make.
Long-running workflows, retries, timeouts, and schedules
Long-running workflows persist progress while waiting for jobs, timers, or people. Retries repeat transiently failing work; timeouts cap waits; schedules start work at defined times. Durable waiting should not consume an open request or a sleeping application…
Idempotency, compensation, and human approvals
Idempotency makes repeating the same logical request avoid repeated effects. Compensation is a business action that offsets an earlier action when later steps fail. Human approvals are authenticated events permitting specific transitions.
Choosing orchestration tools
Workflow engines and job systems provide different guarantees for dispatch, persistence, recovery, waiting, and coordination. Temporal is a durable workflow platform; BullMQ is a Redis-backed job library; Inngest and Trigger.dev offer developer-oriented…
MCP architecture: host, client, and server
MCP is a protocol for connecting AI applications to external tools and context. The host is the application using the model; a client is its protocol connection to a server; a server exposes supported capabilities. The model normally proposes operations,…
MCP tools and tool discovery
A tool is a named executable capability with argument metadata and a schema. Discovery lets a client obtain the server's available tool descriptions. A tool description helps the model choose a capability; it is not proof that the server or tool is…
MCP resources and prompts
Resources expose readable context through identified locations, such as policy documents. Prompts expose reusable task templates and arguments. Tools perform operations; resources provide content; prompts help compose a task.
Authentication, authorization, and permissions
Authentication establishes who a client/user is; authorization determines what that identity may do. MCP connection authorization and downstream business authorization are separate concerns. A valid connection does not automatically permit every customer's…
MCP versus REST, function calling, and plugins
REST is an HTTP API design style for application services. Function calling is a model interaction mechanism for proposing structured operations. MCP standardizes integration discovery and invocation/context exchange; a plugin is a packaging/integration…
Conceptual MCP server: four business tools
This example defines server-side contracts and dispatch logic, not a particular MCP SDK's registration syntax. Attach this registry to the selected SDK's authenticated request handlers, implement capability discovery, and encode its documented result…
Context, short-term memory, and conversation memory
Context is what the model sees now. Short-term memory is task/session information retained across nearby steps. Conversation memory is selected dialogue history or a summary used to maintain continuity.
Long-term, semantic, episodic, and user-profile memory
Long-term memory stores selected information beyond one task. Semantic memory contains facts or preferences; episodic memory records past events; user-profile memory contains explicit attributes such as preferred language. These categories overlap and should…
State persistence and checkpoints
State persistence stores task progress; checkpoints record recovery positions. Neither automatically means user preference memory. A durable claim workflow may need execution records even when conversational history is deleted under a different retention…
Context summarization and memory retrieval
Summarization compresses earlier interaction into a shorter record. Memory retrieval selects relevant stored entries, sometimes through vectors and metadata. Both reduce context volume but can lose or distort information.
Prompt injection, indirect injection, and jailbreaking
Prompt injection is an attempt to make a model follow an attacker's instructions instead of the intended task. Indirect injection places those instructions in external content, such as a PDF, webpage, email, or tool result. Jailbreaking generally attempts to…
Tool poisoning and excessive agency
Tool poisoning uses malicious tool definitions or descriptions to influence model behavior. Excessive agency gives the AI more permissions or autonomy than its task needs. A harmless-looking tool name can conceal a sensitive operation or destination.
Data leakage, PII, sensitive data, and secrets
Data leakage is unauthorized disclosure. PII means personally identifiable information, such as identity-linked names, contact details, and account identifiers. Sensitive business or health information and credentials need protection even when they do not fit…
Authentication, authorization, least privilege, and tenant isolation
Authentication verifies identity. Authorization decides allowed objects and actions. Least privilege grants only required capabilities; tenant isolation keeps one organization's data and operations separated from others.
Validation, rate limiting, and secure database access
Input validation checks permitted shapes and values; output validation checks generated data before use. Rate limiting constrains requests or resources by user, tenant, and operation. Secure tool services mediate database/API access through known business…
Difficulty is an editorial estimate. Completion means you chose to mark a question as understood.