Unit 2 — Connections

A model can reason about a calendar it cannot see, but it cannot help you manage the calendar. Connections are the difference between generic advice and grounded assistance. They also create risk, because every connection is a boundary the system must respect.

Follow the idea

Begin with AI Is Only as Useful as What It Can Reach, which explains why a knowledgeable model can still be powerless inside a real workflow. Then use MCP: A Universal Port for AI to see how one connection pattern can expose tools and knowledge without rebuilding every integration from scratch.

The important question is not how many services an agent can reach. It is whether each connection has a clear purpose, a narrow permission boundary, and a result a person can inspect.

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