surface/tool-budget
Tool selection accuracy degrades as the surface grows: more near-neighbours to confuse, more tokens spent before the first user message. Fewer, intent-shaped tools outperform one-tool-per-endpoint surfaces.
- Category
- surface
- Default severity
- warn
- Weight
- 15
- Max deduction
- 30
Why this category matters
How much of the context window the tool surface consumes before anyone says anything.
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": {
"surface/tool-budget": {
"options": {
"warnAt": 20,
"errorAt": 40
}
}
}
}