TL;DR
I introduced a SKILL layer while improving fare extraction in a MCP-based transit agent. After that, the agent stopped reliably using the MCP tool and started favoring web search, breaking real-time accuracy. I rolled back to a stable baseline, reintroduced SKILL more carefully, and restored MCP tool usage.
After the last post, the system felt stable.
The MCP-based transit agent was working. Fare retrieval was consistent, routes were predictable, and tool calls behaved the way I expected. It felt like I had finally reached a baseline I could build on.
Then I started iterating again.
