The original title is "The Integration Decision Tree: Plugin vs MCP Server vs CLI Bridge"

Short summary

A detailed architectural decision tree for choosing between in-process plugins, standalone MCP servers, and CLI bridges in local-first AI systems. The author argues plugins are for prototyping only—production tools should be MCP servers because they survive daemon restarts, maintain independent logs, and crash without silent death. Stdio transport suits single-machine dev; SSE is better for shared, multi-client setups.

• •Plugins share the host process lifecycle, causing silent death and cache loss on daemon restarts
• •MCP servers provide process isolation, independent logging, and survive client crashes
• •Stdio for single-machine dev; SSE for shared/multi-client production setups

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