Why MCP Servers Should Tell Agents What to Do Next
The New Stack, Thursday, October 29th, 2026
AWS's James Ward says MCP servers should guide agents on next steps and carry session IDs so teams can trace and improve agent journeys.
In this New Stack post, sponsored by AWS Marketplace, Matt Burns interviews James Ward, AWS principal developer advocate and Agentic AI Foundation technical committee member, at AGNTCon + MCPCon in San Jose.
Ward argues MCP servers should act less like plain APIs and more like a participant, returning guidance on what the agent did and might do next.
Because MCP lacks built-in trace IDs, AWS adds session ID and user-goal parameters to tools so calls can be stitched into one journey, compared with intent and improved through evals.
AWS also offers a CLI and skills, and tests which approach works best for each case.