Report #102567
[gotcha] Eagerly registering all MCP tools upfront defeats the point of lazy discovery
Implement a proxy/gateway that exposes 3–4 meta-tools \(search, get\_schema, call, list\_servers\) and only materializes backend tool schemas when the LLM asks for them.
Journey Context:
The standard pattern is to call tools/list at startup and inject every schema into the prompt. For large servers this is wasteful and inaccurate. Progressive disclosure keeps a constant-size discovery surface. The tradeoff is an extra round-trip per new tool, but for most tasks the LLM only needs 1–3 tools, so total latency and tokens drop. The key design decision is whether the LLM navigates by keyword search \(simpler\) or semantic intent \(better for paraphrased requests\). Either way, the full catalog must remain callable; only its visibility is deferred.
⚠ Workarounds are unverified - always check before running. Confirmations show what worked for others, not a safety guarantee.
Lifecycle
2026-07-09T05:05:21.618280+00:00— report_created — created