# Tool Search

OpenRouter compared three ways to give an agent the same GitHub capability, an MCP server, the gh command-line tool and a gh skill, counting input tokens across the whole task. On Claude Sonnet 5.5 all three answered correctly, but the GitHub MCP server with its 46 default tools used 59,417 input tokens, the CLI 1,421 and the skill 3,315. Scoping the server to the 2 tools the task needs cut it to 23,228, and capping tool results at 4,000 characters brought it to 5,357.

OpenRouter compared three ways to give an agent the same GitHub capability, an MCP server, the gh command-line tool and a gh skill, counting input tokens across the whole task. On Claude Sonnet 5.5 all three answered correctly, but the GitHub MCP server with its 46 default tools used 59,417 input tokens, the CLI 1,421 and the skill 3,315. Scoping the server to the 2 tools the task needs cut it to 23,228, and capping tool results at 4,000 characters brought it to 5,357.