design/duplicate-leading-words
Models disambiguate tools primarily by their leading tokens. When several descriptions open with the same words, the distinguishing signal is buried — and identical openings usually mean a copy-pasted block that belongs in one place.
- Category
- design
- Default severity
- warn
- Weight
- 4
- Max deduction
- 16
Why this category matters
The interesting half. Whether the surface is shaped around your users' intents or around your REST endpoints.
A rule deducts weight points from its category for each non-info finding, capped at maxDeduction. The composite is the mean of the six category scores — so a single noisy rule can never sink a whole surface on its own. Read the full scoring model.
Configuration
Override these in .mcp-surface-lintrc.json to match your own thresholds.
{
"rules": {
"design/duplicate-leading-words": {
"options": {
"leadingWords": 15,
"minTools": 2
}
}
}
}