MCP Server Tool Definitions Consume Excessive Context Tokens; Apideck CLI Offers Efficient Alternative
By
gertjandewilde
Sesame, salt, and substance. A flagship bake.
Summary
The article discusses a significant problem with MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers where tool definitions consume massive amounts of token context (55,000+ tokens) before any user message processing begins. This severely limits AI agent capabilities by using up valuable context window space. The author presents an alternative solution called Apideck CLI, which replaces tens of thousands of tokens of schema with an ~80-token agent prompt. This approach uses progressive disclosure via `--help` commands and structural safety baked into the binary, allowing any agent that can run shell commands to use it without requiring protocol support.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledBefore your agent has read a single user message, 55,000 tokens of tool definitions are sitting in the context window. That's over a quarter of Claude's 200k limit. Gone.
Each MCP tool costs 550-1,400 tokens for its name, description, JSON schema, field descriptions, enums, and system instructions.
We built the Apideck CLI as an AI-agent interface instead: an ~80-token agent prompt replaces tens of thousands of tokens of schema, with progressive disclosure via `--help` and structural safety baked into the binary.
Any agent that can run shell commands can use it. No protocol support required.
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