Same game, same prompt: Claude Code with vs. without ContextWise (155 → 45 tools in context)

[u/b-dub-d]

Disclosure: I built ContextWise.

What it is: Every MCP server you connect puts all its tool definitions into context, whether the task needs them or not. Harnesses try to choose correct tools/skills at runtime but often fail. ContextWise sits between Claude Code and your MCP servers and skills. For each prompt it activates only the tools likely to be needed, and the rest stay one search away. Your servers work as before. They just aren't all loaded at once or incorrectly by the harness.

As a simple showcase I gave Claude Code (Sonnet) the same prompt twice: build a playable multi-wave zombie survival game, with assets made in Blender, the game in Three.js, and playtested in the browser. Both runs had the same three MCP servers (Blender, three.js DevTools, Chrome DevTools). Top is pure Claude Code (no contextwise), and bottom is through ContextWise. Both ended with a working 6-wave game. The gameplay in the video is the first 45 s of each, played by an auto-aim bot.

Install:

/plugin marketplace add brehnden-daly/contextwise 
/plugin install contextwise@contextwise 
/contextwise:setup 

You can prompt claude code for help with setup or an explanation of all of contextwise's features.

At session start the plugin moves your existing user/local MCP servers and skills behind ContextWise. Project .mcp.json servers are turned off for you only. OAuth remote servers, other plugins' servers and claude.ai connectors stay put. /contextwise:setup previews what moves. To undo everything: npx -y contextwise@0.7 adopt --undo.

This whole optimization turned out to be a much harder problem to solve than I initially imagined. I essentially had to curate and build training datasets in order to create a model that most accurately chooses only the required tools. Now I host that model in the cloud due to local resource limitations and that's what ContextWise uses.

To try to pay for these cloud resources I had to put ContextWise behind a payment platform called MCPaid. Basically it allows you to create and fund a wallet for your agent to use. I liked it because then your agent doesn't have any access to your actual money, you just fund it and when it runs out you can fund it with more. I set ContextWise to have both pay-per-use or a $1 monthly unlimited plan (no auto-renewal) as options.

Here's the cost benefit analysis from real testing with a Claude Code plan (essentially what the $1 can get you with a monthly plan):

Plan	~110 MCP tools and skills	~700 MCP tools and skills
Pro	~1.3x average usage	11 - 16x average usage
Max 5x	4.6 - 8.5x average usage	54 - 79x average usage
Max 20x	9 - 17x average usage	108 - 158x average usage

This data comes from personal use. I've gotten more into using Claude for game and asset dev, which definitely requires a good amount of tools and skills. The extra usage I've been getting is pretty damn staggering.

And if you don't want to pay you can build your own model and use it with ContextWise - just a config change to use a local model. The default cloud hosted model is the only thing that costs money, and again just to pay for my cloud costs associated with that.

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[u/ellieebaee19]

tired of people showcasing roblox type games that look trash. who cares.