# Directus integrated MCP: how to reduce token usage?

**URL:** <https://community.directus.com/t/directus-integrated-mcp-how-to-reduce-token-usage/1304>\
**Category:** Help\
**Tags:** api\
**Created:** [October 8, 2025, 2:41pm UTC](https://community.directus.com/t/directus-integrated-mcp-how-to-reduce-token-usage/1304 "2025-10-08T14:41:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Jehu](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.directus.com/jehu/32/993_2.png) [@Jehu](https://community.directus.com/u/Jehu)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 2:41pm UTC](https://community.directus.com/t/directus-integrated-mcp-how-to-reduce-token-usage/1304/1 "2025-10-08T14:41:32Z")

</div>

i am using the Directus built-in MCP with Claude Code (and very happy that it exists).

But the token usage is a bit off.  
Here’s the token usage shown with /context command

```auto
     └ mcp __directus-claude__ system-prompt (directus-claude): 594 tokens
     └ mcp __directus-claude__ items (directus-claude): 4.2k tokens
     └ mcp __directus-claude__ files (directus-claude): 4.1k tokens
     └ mcp __directus-claude__ folders (directus-claude): 1.5k tokens
     └ mcp __directus-claude__ assets (directus-claude): 692 tokens
     └ mcp __directus-claude__ trigger-flow (directus-claude): 2.9k tokens
     └ mcp __directus-claude__ schema (directus-claude): 2.1k tokens 

```

This is huge! Compare this to Chromde DevTools for example:

```auto
  └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ list_console_messages (chrome-devtools): 584 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ emulate_cpu (chrome-devtools): 651 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ emulate_network (chrome-devtools): 694 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ click (chrome-devtools): 636 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ drag (chrome-devtools): 638 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ fill (chrome-devtools): 644 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ fill_form (chrome-devtools): 676 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ hover (chrome-devtools): 609 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ upload_file (chrome-devtools): 651 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ get_network_request (chrome-devtools): 618 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ list_network_requests (chrome-devtools): 783 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ close_page (chrome-devtools): 624 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ handle_dialog (chrome-devtools): 645 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ list_pages (chrome-devtools): 582 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ navigate_page (chrome-devtools): 642 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ navigate_page_history (chrome-devtools): 656 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ new_page (chrome-devtools): 637 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ resize_page (chrome-devtools): 629 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ select_page (chrome-devtools): 619 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ performance_analyze_insight (chrome-devtools): 648 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ performance_start_trace (chrome-devtools): 689 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ performance_stop_trace (chrome-devtools): 586 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ take_screenshot (chrome-devtools): 803 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ evaluate_script (chrome-devtools): 775 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ take_snapshot (chrome-devtools): 614 tokens
 └ mcp __chrome-devtools__ wait_for (chrome-devtools): 643 tokens

```

- Is there a way to reduce the available tools via configuration?
- Is the Directus Team working on a solution for this?

Thank you!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rijkvanzanten](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.directus.com/rijkvanzanten/32/31_2.png) [@rijkvanzanten](https://community.directus.com/u/rijkvanzanten)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 3:00pm UTC](https://community.directus.com/t/directus-integrated-mcp-how-to-reduce-token-usage/1304/2 "2025-10-08T15:00:38Z")

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It’s a tricky balance between token usage and reliability of the tool. During development there was a time where the tokens where 10× what they are now and it worked even more reliably 🥴

@bryantgillespie any additional context?? You’ve spent the most time in the deep end here 🙂

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bryantgillespie](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.directus.com/bryantgillespie/32/33_2.png) [@bryantgillespie](https://community.directus.com/u/bryantgillespie)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 3:25pm UTC](https://community.directus.com/t/directus-integrated-mcp-how-to-reduce-token-usage/1304/3 "2025-10-08T15:25:34Z")

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Thanks for the bump Rijk. Indeed I am in the deep end of this. 🫠

Great topic and great question @Jehu ! And one that I personally wrestled with a lot with during the latest MCP Release.

[Spoke a little bit about it here](https://community.directus.com/t/official-directus-mcp-server/420/20), but we’re definitely aware of the heavier token usage. It was a conscious decision we made when shipping that latest release with the MCP.

In the tradeoff between higher token costs vs (reasonably) reliable results – we chose better results.

If you look at things like creating / managing schema in Directus, you have not only the underlying SQL schema we have to account for but also the metadata for the UI (interfaces, displays, etc)

It’s a lot of complex data with a lot of possible combinations that unfortunately has to be highly accurate or bad things will happen 😰.

The only way to inform the LLM of that structure is to give it specific detailed examples which have a high token cost.

All that said - we’re actively working on ways to reduce the token usage while ensuring we still get the level of reliability we expect.

We’ve got a few promising concepts that I think will solve the problem, but we’re not willing to ship until we can prove the results are 100% as good or better.

For a quick fix today, would definitely recommend disabling the tools you’re not using or don’t plan to use in that session. So if you’re not working with files and folders or flows and operations – just disable those tools for the session so they don’t eat into your context window.

Long term though - we got you 😃✊.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jehu](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.directus.com/jehu/32/993_2.png) [@Jehu](https://community.directus.com/u/Jehu)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 4:19pm UTC](https://community.directus.com/t/directus-integrated-mcp-how-to-reduce-token-usage/1304/4 "2025-10-08T16:19:36Z")

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thanks for the reply. However, I cannot find any information in the documentation about how to deactivate tools. It was documented for the former MCP but not for the new MCP integrated into Directus.

Also i can’t disable specific tools with Claude Code. Even when denying the access, the tools are loaded and eats tokens (see [[FEATURE] MCP Tool Filtering: Allow Selective Enable/Disable of Individual Tools from Servers · Issue #7328 · anthropics/claude-code · GitHub](https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/7328)).

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bryantgillespie](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.directus.com/bryantgillespie/32/33_2.png) [@bryantgillespie](https://community.directus.com/u/bryantgillespie)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 5:24pm UTC](https://community.directus.com/t/directus-integrated-mcp-how-to-reduce-token-usage/1304/5 "2025-10-08T17:24:29Z")

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Oh ok. Got it. I hadn’t realized that you couldn’t disable individual tools through Claude Code. From that doc, it looks like you can set permissions to not allow it but it still gets loaded into the context window.

Please accept my apologies for the quick fix that doesn’t fix the problem 😅 🙏

Most other clients let you disable individual tools so this wasn’t on our radar in that last release.

I think the long-term fix is still one of the concepts that we’ve got around progressively loading tool context rather than implementing the ability to turn off specific tools on the server side.