methodology v1.0 · o200k_base · generated 2026-08-18 07:58 UTC
What popular MCP servers cost in context tokens before the agent does any work — measured from raw tools/list captures, every number re-derivable from its published measurement file.
Tokens = o200k_base count of the canonical tools/list bytes — the wire payload. What a Claude request actually carries can differ sharply (github: 54,422 on the wire, 18,406 in a request — 80% of its schema bytes are fields no Anthropic request sends). The trend line plots tokens across every sweep date on record (oldest→newest, dot = current); servers with one sweep so far show no line yet. Hover a row for exact numbers; method.
Every candidate appears; failures are findings, not omissions.
| server | status | note |
|---|---|---|
| gdrive | auth-required | server exited (code 1); stderr tail: Credentials not found. Please run with 'auth' argument first. |
| redis-legacy | startup-failure | server exited (code 1); stderr tail: econnect (/tmp/.npm-cache/_npx/5c1b9cdedadb4486/node_modules/@redis/client/dist/lib/client/socket.js:140:16) at RedisSo |
| azure | auth-required | server exited (code 0); stderr tail: oveNext() at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.AsyncMethodBuilderCore.Start[[Azure.Mcp.Server.Program+<Main>d__2, az |
| magic | auth-required | server error -32001: Not authenticated - your API key is missing or was reset. Get a fresh key at https://21st.dev/mcp and update your MCP config (x-api-key / B |
| stripe | startup-failure | server exited (code 1); stderr tail: index.js:20:30) at Object.<anonymous> (/tmp/.npm-cache/_npx/bce731a0395adf49/node_modules/@stripe/mcp/dist/index. |
| heroku | startup-failure | server exited (code 1); stderr tail: Fatal error in main(): Cannot find module '/tmp/.npm-cache/_npx/909ffbc9d45b7a62/node_modules/@modelcontextprotocol/sdk/dis |
| neo4j-cypher | startup-failure | server exited (code 1); stderr tail: CK8xthI3sJK/lib/python3.12/site-packages/neo4j/_async/driver.py", line 194, in driver driver_type, security_type, |
| grafana | timeout | timeout after 180000ms waiting for initialize |
| neon | startup-failure | server exited (code 1) |
| elasticsearch | startup-failure | server exited (code 1); stderr tail: Server error: [ { "validation": "url", "code": "invalid_string", &quo |
| linear | remote-auth-wall | OAuth-gated remote server; listed, not measured |
| zapier | remote-auth-wall | OAuth-gated remote server; listed, not measured |
| vercel | remote-auth-wall | OAuth-gated remote server; listed, not measured |
| xcodebuildmcp | startup-failure | server exited (code 1); stderr tail: "none"] --style Output style (normal is detailed; minimal is compact MCP-like output) [s |
| desktop-commander | startup-failure | server exited (code 1); stderr tail: nt rates) by contacting i@izs.me npm warn deprecated fstream@1.0.12: This package is no longer supported. npm warn deprecat |
| gmail | auth-required | server exited (code 1); stderr tail: Error: OAuth keys file not found. Please place gcp-oauth.keys.json in current directory or /tmp/.gmail-mcp |
| slack | startup-failure | server exited (code 1); stderr tail: .execFileSync (node:child_process:952:15) at Object.<anonymous> (/tmp/.npm-cache/_npx/2f12aed4e6049c73/node_modul |
A shields.io endpoint badge backed by a reproducible measurement — merge one line into a README.
badges/postgres.jsonbadges/github.json[](<methodology URL>)
| # | server | tokens (o200k) | claude req | tools | band | category | trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | github | 54,422 | 18,406 | 44 | very heavy | vendor-official | — |
| 2 | brave-search | 25,456 | 13,746 | 8 | heavy | vendor-official | — |
| 3 | notion | 17,500 | 33,560 | 24 | heavy | vendor-official | — |
| 4 | mcp-atlassian | 17,311 | 22,234 | 63 | heavy | community | — |
| 5 | circleci | 11,912 | 19,164 | 13 | moderate | vendor-official | — |
| 6 | apify | 10,426 | 8,313 | 10 | moderate | vendor-official | — |
| 7 | firecrawl | 9,561 | 16,428 | 27 | moderate | vendor-official | — |
| 8 | redis | 9,246 | — | 53 | moderate | vendor-official | — |
| 9 | basic-memory | 9,188 | 12,426 | 23 | moderate | community | — |
| 10 | hubspot | 9,158 | 14,398 | 21 | moderate | vendor-official | — |
| 11 | postgres-mcp | 8,632 | — | 9 | moderate | community | — |
| 12 | serena | 8,204 | — | 29 | moderate | community | — |
| 13 | mongodb | 7,926 | 8,765 | 27 | moderate | vendor-official | — |
| 14 | sentry | 6,455 | 10,463 | 9 | moderate | vendor-official | — |
| 15 | pinecone | 5,903 | 9,184 | 9 | moderate | vendor-official | — |
| 16 | shopify-dev | 5,624 | 9,805 | 5 | moderate | vendor-official | — |
| 17 | kubernetes | 5,268 | 9,165 | 23 | moderate | community | — |
| 18 | blender | 5,258 | 8,106 | 24 | moderate | community | — |
| 19 | aws-documentation | 5,074 | — | 5 | moderate | vendor-official | — |
| 20 | supabase | 5,013 | — | 29 | moderate | vendor-official | — |
| 21 | huggingface | 4,691 | — | 4 | light | vendor-official | — |
| 22 | excel | 4,266 | — | 25 | light | community | — |
| 23 | airtable | 4,207 | — | 16 | light | community | — |
| 24 | playwright | 4,024 | — | 24 | light | vendor-official | — |
| 25 | github-legacy | 3,548 | — | 26 | light | official-reference | — |
| 26 | arxiv | 3,228 | — | 14 | light | community | — |
| 27 | playwright-community | 2,920 | — | 33 | light | community | — |
| 28 | chroma | 2,837 | — | 13 | light | vendor-official | — |
| 29 | netlify | 2,831 | — | 9 | light | vendor-official | — |
| 30 | filesystem | 2,823 | — | 14 | light | official-reference | — |
| 31 | pulumi | 2,768 | — | 12 | light | vendor-official | — |
| 32 | n8n-mcp | 2,636 | — | 7 | light | community | — |
| 33 | memory | 2,378 | — | 9 | light | official-reference | +0 / 2d |
| 34 | terraform | 2,061 | — | 9 | light | vendor-official | — |
| 35 | everything | 1,708 | — | 13 | light | official-reference | — |
| 36 | tavily | 1,653 | — | 5 | light | vendor-official | — |
| 37 | searxng | 1,481 | — | 4 | light | community | — |
| 38 | git | 1,455 | — | 12 | light | official-reference | — |
| 39 | pandoc | 1,425 | — | 1 | light | community | — |
| 40 | obsidian | 1,132 | — | 12 | light | community | — |
| 41 | context7 | 1,052 | — | 2 | light | vendor-official | — |
| 42 | sequential-thinking | 992 | — | 1 | lean | official-reference | — |
| 43 | bright-data | 978 | — | 5 | lean | vendor-official | — |
| 44 | microsoft-learn | 972 | — | 3 | lean | vendor-official | — |
| 45 | figma-context | 946 | — | 2 | lean | community | — |
| 46 | duckduckgo | 724 | — | 2 | lean | community | — |
| 47 | slack-legacy | 681 | — | 8 | lean | official-reference | — |
| 48 | clickhouse | 581 | — | 3 | lean | vendor-official | — |
| 49 | google-maps | 549 | — | 7 | lean | official-reference | — |
| 50 | puppeteer | 540 | — | 7 | lean | official-reference | — |
| 51 | exa | 486 | — | 2 | lean | vendor-official | — |
| 52 | airbnb | 486 | — | 2 | lean | community | — |
| 53 | cloudflare-docs | 422 | — | 2 | lean | vendor-official | — |
| 54 | mysql | 393 | — | 3 | lean | community | — |
| 55 | browserbase | 364 | — | 6 | lean | vendor-official | — |
| 56 | deepwiki | 359 | — | 3 | lean | vendor-official | — |
| 57 | gitlab | 336 | — | 9 | lean | official-reference | — |
| 58 | brave-search-legacy | 319 | — | 2 | lean | official-reference | — |
| 59 | time | 293 | — | 2 | lean | official-reference | — |
| 60 | sqlite | 268 | — | 6 | lean | official-reference | — |
| 61 | fetch | 238 | — | 1 | lean | official-reference | — |
| 62 | qdrant | 188 | — | 2 | lean | vendor-official | — |
| 63 | perplexity | 133 | — | 1 | lean | vendor-official | — |
| 64 | markitdown | 64 | — | 1 | lean | vendor-official | — |
| 65 | postgres | 32 | — | 1 | lean | official-reference | — |