context-mcp

A tool for improving the notes an agent keeps about connected MCP servers, which provide external tools and services to the agent. It detects those servers and creates guidance for using them efficiently.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to inspect connected MCP servers, match them with known guidance, discover improvements for unfamiliar servers, and update AGENTS.md with tool notes.
Why use it?
The notes can reduce unnecessary output and help the agent choose suitable tools and settings, especially when a command-line tool is better for reading data.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/fending/context-engineering/context-mcp
Any agent
npx skills add fending/context-engineering --skill context-mcp
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/fending/context-engineering

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 42 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,429 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan B 1 finding. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00042 $0.03429
Opus 5 $0.00021 $0.01715
Sonnet 5 $0.00008 $0.00686
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00343

Measured 2d ago against content hash 906c83aba4a8, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

context-mcp scanned grade B with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Reads agent configuration directoriesmediumAgent snooping

.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/ hold keys, settings and other credentials a mod has no legitimate need for.

| Claude Code | `~/.claude/settings.json` | JSON |
plugins/context-setup/skills/context-mcp/SKILL.md · 232 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 232 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

DEPRECATION NOTICE: You are running context-setup from fending/context-engineering, which is no longer maintained. The active version is at ordovera/ordovera-plugins. To migrate, run:

  1. /plugin marketplace add ordovera/ordovera-plugins
  2. /plugin install context-setup@ordovera-plugins

Then remove the old marketplace: /plugin marketplace remove context-engineering

Print this notice to the user before proceeding with the skill.

Context MCP

Optimize MCP tool calls the same way Command Output Notes optimizes CLI commands. Detect what MCP servers are connected, match against known templates, and generate documentation that reduces token waste from default tool parameters.

General Principle: CLI Over MCP for Reads

When a CLI tool and MCP server both cover the same operation, prefer CLI for read operations. CLI tools generally offer field selection (--json field1,field2), output piping (| tail -5), and documented, predictable behavior. MCP servers typically wrap raw APIs with no field filtering -- GitHub's MCP get_issue returns ~100 lines where gh issue view --json title,state returns 1. MCP is the right choice for write operations (creating issues, sending messages) where output size doesn't matter, and for services that have no CLI equivalent.

When generating MCP Tool Notes, flag cases where a CLI alternative exists and if superior in performance recommend CLI for reads alongside the MCP optimization guidance.

What This Skill Does

Two tiers: known pattern recommendations (deterministic, config-based) and interactive discovery (user-in-the-loop, for unknown servers).

1. Detect MCP Configurations

Scan for MCP config files across platforms. Always ask before reading user-level configs outside the project directory.

Project-level configs (read without asking):

Platform Path Format
Claude Code .mcp.json JSON
OpenAI Codex .codex/config.toml TOML
Gemini CLI .gemini/settings.json JSON
VS Code / GitHub Copilot .vscode/mcp.json JSON
Cursor .cursor/mcp.json JSON

Read the full file on GitHub · 232 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 232 lines · 42 tokens per session scan B 906c83aba4a8

Subscribe to this mod's changes

context-mcp is a skill published in the GitHub repository fending/context-engineering (11 stars, last pushed 5mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 42 tokens to every session and 3,429 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it B with 1 finding (reads agent configuration directories). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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