Hi! I'm the developer of Ref (https://ref.tools), the MCP server for giving coding agents access to public and private docs. Ref's goal is to provide exactly the tokens you need to guide the model and nothing else.
I've been working on this one MCP server for about 6 months and I wanted to share the ways I've used and considered using different MCP features. If you're new to MCP, I hope this article can give you a sense of how developers can leverage MCP in practice.
And because I get asked this ALL the time : how is Ref different from Context7?
- Ref uses on avg 55% fewer tokens with the same or better accuracy (eval blog post: https://ref.tools/blog/how-make-search-good)
- Ref allows indexing your own private github repos and pdfs
- Ref is a paid product with 200 free searches to start
Hi! I'm the developer of ref.tools. Would love to know what you're searching that you couldn't find, very occasionally things are missing from the index. Drop me a line at matt@ref.tools
Also FYI a bunch of search quality improvements dropped this week so you might want to try again. :)
Thanks I appreciate the kind response! The fun and nerve wracking thing about posting on hackernews - I get takes I never would have expected lol
I'm surprised you took away from this that I think the goal should be making more humans because that's not what I believe and not what was I was trying to communicate. I don't think there is one "goal" to life and this article was in now way about goals but I'm glad you have such a sense of purpose for your life! I wish you well in that too!
Just because you mention it though - its a false dichotomy that creating more lives is at odds with improving the lives of the current existing people.
A little nervous sharing since last time I posted some personal writing on here I got flamed to the front page, hopefully I don't offend anyone this time :)
Yeah you're right a months long process would be horrible!
Fortunately, that didn't happen in this case. Part of building a team is getting to know talented people before they're looking for a job so when they're ready they reach out to you.
And you're right, this is work, not dating. But that doesn't remove the human emotion involved in getting to know someone.
Yes! You're right! That would be way too long for an interview loop. I'm sorry I wasn't clear in the article.
The candidate and I first met long before they were interested in interviewing. They had potential and I got to know them so that when they were interested in interviewing they'd reach out. Once they decided to interview, we made that happen as quickly as schedules allowed!
Hope that clarification helps! Thanks for the note!
It sounds like you understand the burden of being an interviewer!
Can you share a little more about what made the decision emotional or impulsive? I'd love to make sure my writing is clear and it sounds like it wasn't. While building a relationship with a candidate can be emotional, we always use a standardized rubric to evaluate candidates. Even with a rubric the decisions can be hard!
I can't share the specifics of feedback but you're right that's the most interesting part of this decision and where I could learn the most. Ultimately, it's a hard to reverse decision with imperfect information and that's why it can be so emotionally tough.
That's a really good analogy that the longest rollercoaster is 4 minutes. You're absolutely right that a months long interview process would suck. Fortunately, that wasn't what happened. I've added an amendment to the story to clarify, take a look!
I obviously can't go into the details of the feedback but I share your wish that hiring decisions would more cut and dry! It would be a lot easier for everyone.
