Token optimization for agents: where does the MCP context window go?
Summary
The article examines where MCP agent context windows are being consumed and shows that tool payloads, not just prompts, can take up a large share of tokens. It uses GitHub MCP and Playwright MCP examples to illustrate how much context different tool calls and responses consume in Claude-based workflows. It also introduces ContextTax, a CLI utility for measuring token usage across prompts and tool payloads on macOS, Linux, and Windows. The piece makes the case that teams building agentic software need better visibility into context costs to improve efficiency and control usage.
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