Technical interview guide

Agent Frameworks, Orchestration & MCP

Stateful agent orchestration frameworks (LangGraph and peers) and MCP, the emerging standard protocol for connecting models to tools and data.

Read: 45 min
Practice MCQs: 25
Interview QA: 25
Edition: v4
Editorial status: Reviewed
Relevant for: AI EngineerAgentic AI EngineerForward Deployed Engineer (FDE)

Scope: MCP 2026-07-28 and TypeScript SDK v2, JSON-RPC 2.0, JSON Schema 2020-12, OpenAPI 3.2.0, LangGraph reference reviewed 2026-09-04, AutoGen, ReAct, Toolformer, OpenTelemetry, W3C Trace Context, NIST GenAI, and OWASP Prompt Injection/Excessive Agency.

Interview QA

Treat each question like a live interview question: answer out loud first (structure, assumptions, tradeoffs), then open the model answer to spot gaps and rehearse a tighter follow-up.

Curated: 2026-10-05 · Written: 2026-10-05 · Reviewed: 2026-10-03

QA-1

Evaluate an agent framework for a production workflow.

QA-2

Design durable execution and checkpointing.

QA-3

Implement a human approval node.

QA-4

Design an anti-corruption layer around an agent framework.

QA-5

Migrate an MCP client from 2025 to 2026 protocol semantics.

QA-6

Design MCP capability discovery and compatibility.

QA-7

Implement MCP version negotiation and rollout.

QA-8

Separate MCP identity metadata from authorization.

QA-9

Design an MCP server feature surface.

QA-10

Implement a secure MCP tool handler.

QA-11

Design secure MCP resources.

QA-12

Safely integrate MCP prompts into an agent host.

QA-13

How do you design human-in-the-loop approval workflows and policy checks for high-impact MCP tool invocations in autonomous multi-agent environments?

QA-14

Design idempotent MCP side effects.

QA-15

Implement secure MCP multi-round input.

QA-16

Design an MCP long-running task integration.

QA-17

Implement MCP list and resource caching safely.

QA-18

Implement MCP HTTP authorization.

QA-19

Secure a local stdio MCP server.

QA-20

Build an OpenAPI-to-MCP tool adapter.

QA-21

Instrument framework and MCP operations.

QA-22

Design MCP content handling.

QA-23

Plan an MCP SDK and protocol upgrade.

QA-24

Build an MCP conformance and resilience suite.

QA-25