The team at MaximHQ built Model Context Protocol support into Bifrost, their high-performance AI gateway. They initially thought connecting to MCP servers would be simple, but production readiness revealed gaps the protocol itself doesn't address, particularly around security and operational complexity.

Standard MCP implementations let AI models execute any tool, creating security risks and zero observability. Bifrost acts as a control plane, offering four connection types: InProcess for sub-millisecond Go tools, STDIO for local scripts, HTTP for remote services, and SSE for real-time data streams.

A key innovation is its security model: tool calls are suggestions, not commands. You can whitelist specific tools for automatic execution or filter available tools per request using headers. This prevents privilege escalation, a major concern for security teams deploying AI agents with real infrastructure access.