Composing Agent Experience by Andre Landgraf

At our recent Dev Tools event in San Francisco, Andre Landgraf from Neon gave a talk on Composing Agent Experience. What does it actually take to build great "agent experience" for a developer tool? In this talk from a Neon/Databricks engineer, you'll get a practical breakdown of how agent.md files, agent skills, MCP servers, llms.txt, and plugins all compose together — plus a checklist for getting started. - What agent experience (AX) actually means, and why good developer experience is the foundation for good agent experience - The building blocks: agent.md files, agent skills, MCP servers, plugins, llms.txt, and markdown-first documentation - Neon's "fast follower" strategy for keeping up in a space where new standards drop every week - How to iterate quickly by experimenting in low-risk layers (CLI, MCP, skills) before investing engineering time higher up the stack - Twitter hot takes dissected: "MCP sucks," "agent.md is better than agent skills," "agent skills will replace MCP" — with nuance on who's saying what and why perspective matters - Why dev tool maintainers care about distribution and discoverability (agent skills) while individual developers care more about context bloat - The mobile revolution analogy: m.facebook.com and AMP are dead, but the companies that experimented early survived 0:00 Intro 0:46 What Is Agent Experience 2:01 The Agent Experience Origin Story 2:49 The Agent Toolbox: Skills, MCP, Plugins, llms.txt 4:34 Agent Experience Checklist for Dev Tools 5:35 Neon's Perspective & Strategy 7:04 Fast Follower Strategy: Iterate Quickly 8:41 Iterating in Low-Risk Layers 9:41 Neon Strategy Summary 9:57 Twitter Hot Takes: "MCP Sucks" 12:23 Hot Take: agent.md or Agent Skills 14:02 Hot Take: MCP Is Dead 15:03 Hot Take: Agent Skills Will Replace MCP 16:30 The Honest Truth: You Have to Do It All 17:47 Closing: Enjoy the Revolution