github.com/evalstate
Hugging Face: Connecting ML With Agents and Skills
MCP Conference, London
Shaun Smith
February 2026
github.com/evalstate

Shaun Smith @evalstate

  • Open Source @ Hugging Face

  • MCP Maintainer / Transports WG

  • huggingface/hf-mcp-server

  • huggingface/upskill

  • huggingface/skills

  • huggingface.co/datasets/mcp-clients

  • Maintainer of fast-agent


github.com/evalstate

github.com/evalstate

Dynamic Spaces and MCP for Inference

github.com/evalstate

MCP Features

  • Inference Gateway

  • Dynamic Model Selection

  • Customisable Behaviour

  • JSON-RPC/SSE Responses

  • Tool Progress Notifications

async (request, extra) => {
  await server.notification({
    method: "notifications/statusUpdate",
    params: { /* your params */ }
  }, { relatedRequestId: extra.requestId });
};
github.com/evalstate

HF Hub MCP Server API Activity (from Jun 2025)

github.com/evalstate

What's going on??

Initialize Requests?

  • 1% MCP Traffic -> Tool Call

  • Unreliable proxy for MCP install

Tool Calls: More != Better

  • Human vs. Agent usage... high call rate may indicate failure.

Sessions with > 1 Tool Call

  • 2% Conversion rate from Initialize

github.com/evalstate

Last 6 weeks of activity

github.com/evalstate

Open Source Client Data (HF Hub MCP)!!

https://huggingface.co/datasets/evalstate/mcp-clients

github.com/evalstate

Bifurcating MCP

People, Agents, Skills -> Code Mode

github.com/evalstate

Hugging Face Skills

  • Model Training

  • Sandboxes & Datasets

  • Tool Building

github.com/huggingface/skills

github.com/evalstate

UPskill github.com/huggingface/upskill

Generate and evaluate Skill peformance across different LLMs

github.com/evalstate

Agents with ACP

(Completing the Circle)

github.com/evalstate

Thank You!

GitHub github.com/evalstate
X x.com/evalstate

Initialize Events might tell us whether someone has the MCP Server installed

Raw Tool Calls is a potentially misleading vanity metric

Sessions that convert to at least one tool call

typical ratio is 1.77% of initialize events are "interesting"