AI article
What an Empty Prompt Costs: Measure the Baseline Tokens of 4 Coding Agent CLIs
Community description: Every fresh agent session sends a system prompt, tools, MCP and memory files first. Measure it in Claude Code, Codex, Copilot CLI and OpenCode.
Dev.to | Oct 16, 2026 | Gabriel Anhaia
Automated excerpt
Claude Code defers MCP tool definitions by default: "Only tool names and server instructions load at session start" (MCP docs). Copilot CLI ships with the GitHub MCP server built in (GitHub docs). ENABLE_TOOL_SEARCH=false loads every MCP tool upfront (MCP docs).
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