MCP AI Tools, OpenAI’s Deep Research, and React 19 Breaks CRA

Front-End Fire

The latest wrinkle for AI coding assistant tools like Cursor and Windsurf is known as the Model Context Protocol (MCP). MCP is an open protocol that allows users to provide custom tools and services to agentic LLMs like calling a third party weather service.

In further AI news, OpenAI has introduced a new deep research agent designed to conduct multi-step research on the internet for complex tasks. Just give it a prompt requiring research, like which model of washing machine to buy, and ChatGPT will find, analyze, and synthesize hundreds of online sources to create a comprehensive report at the level of a research analyst.

And as it turns out, the upgrade to React 19 broke React’s own Create React App (CRA) starter repo and the community wants it fixed and deprecated, as it’s no longer the recommended way to build a new React project in the docs. Mark Erikson, of Redux fame, opens a GitHub issue in the repo suggesting updates and solutions and the official acquiesces to fix the repo for now, and deprecate it in the docs.
News:

• Paige - OpenAI introduces deep research agent
• Jack - Model Context Protocol (MCP) on Cursor and Windsurf
• TJ - Create React App and React 19 (and here’s the issue to add Astro to the React docs)

Bonus News:

• Dan Abramov leaves Bluesky
• Oracle v. Deno trademark update
• GitHub Copilot introduces agents with Copilot Edits

Fire Starters:

• CSS position sticky

What Makes Us Happy this Week:

• Paige - Handheld compressed air duster
• Jack - Finishing LED movie poster RPi project
• TJ - Cannondale Topstone bike

Thanks as always to our sponsor, the Blue Collar Coder channel on YouTube. You can join us in our Discord channel, explore our website and reach us via email, or Tweet us on X @front_end_fire and BlueSky.

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