Reduce Mcp Tool Surface Footprint
in progresstasks19/22reduce-mcp-tool-surface-footprint
openspec/changes/reduce-mcp-tool-surface-footprint/View on GitHub →
Artifacts
Official change artifacts tracked under openspec/.
Proposal
The hosted MCP surface currently repeats the same cross-cutting guidance across many tool descriptions, producing a ~49.6 KB tools/list payload for 14 tools. That cost is paid by every MCP client session and sits in an unpredictable zone for chat-hosted clients whose exact tool-description and tool-result budgets are host-defined.
Design
design-notes/mcp-tool-surface-token-footprint-2026-06-08.md measured the live hosted MCP tools/list response at ~49.6 KB, about ~12,400 tokens by the chars/4 estimate. The largest avoidable cost is repeated prose:
Tasks (19/22)
Spec Deltas (1)
Affected capabilities
Capability specs this change proposes to modify.