Making MCP cheaper via CLI
kanyilmaz.me
February 25, 2026
3 min read
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
63/100
Summary
MCP agents incur high costs due to the inclusion of an extensive tool catalog in JSON Schema format. A CLI generated from an MCP server using CLIHub performs the same functions at a significantly reduced cost.
Key Takeaways
- CLI reduces token usage by approximately 94% compared to MCP by using a lightweight skill listing instead of pre-loading full tool schemas.
- The session start cost for MCP is around 15,540 tokens, while CLI only requires about 300 tokens.
- Anthropic's Tool Search, while more efficient than MCP, still incurs higher costs than CLI, making CLI the cheaper option for tool discovery and execution.
- The author created CLIHub, a directory of CLIs for agent use, and open-sourced a converter to generate CLIs from MCPs with a single command.
Community Sentiment
Positives
- The CLI approach offers practical benefits for token reduction, which can enhance efficiency in AI interactions by minimizing unnecessary context bloat.
- Existing paradigms like Skills effectively mitigate context bloat and selection overhead, showcasing a more structured approach to tool discovery in AI applications.
Concerns
- MCP tools contribute significantly to context bloat, as they require sending extensive tool catalogs with every request, which can hinder performance.
- The claim that MCP tools need to dump the entire tool catalog into the conversation is outdated, as more advanced clients like Claude Code have improved this process.
