Hey guys, In my quest of clean context windows, I have find a way, sharing with you some learning. MCPs are a great idea with a hidden cost: context bloat. Every MCP you connect loads its full tool schema into your agent's context window. Doesn't matter if you're using 2 tools or 20, the whole thing gets serialized. I checked my setup recently and MCPs alone were eating 12% of my available context before I even started working. The alternative I've been using: CLIs + skill docs. Instead of an MCP that exposes 15 tools to your agent at all times, you build a CLI that does the same thing. Then you write a small skill doc, just a markdown file explaining what the CLI does and when to use it. Your agent reads the doc when relevant, runs the CLI via bash, done. Benefits: - Context only used when actually needed - Works with Claude Code, Codex CLI, or any agent that can shell out - Easier to debug (it's just bash commands) - Can publish to npm and share with others I've been converting my MCPs one by one. Down to 3% overhead now. Last one I build for my PAI (Personal AI Assistant) meetgeek-cli I can only suggest you guys give this a try! Hope this help! Quentin 🚀