DEFINITION
Context Bloat
Context Window Bloat
Definition
The problem of rapidly exhausting an agent's context window (token limit) due to unnecessarily large or unfiltered responses from tools/MCP servers. Occurs when tools return full structured data (e.g., complete accessibility snapshots) instead of filtered, relevant subsets, causing agents to consume tokens inefficiently.
Examples in the Wild
- Example 1:playwright-mcp returning full a11y snapshots instead of filtered text
- Example 2:Agent context window filling up faster than expected
- Example 3:Token usage spike when switching from CLI tools to MCP servers