Apologies, you're right - I used imprecise terminology. The entire initial JSON structure that was sent from Claude Claude to the LLM at the start of a session was 162k. This included the system prompt together with a list of tools (some with very extensive explanations), MCP server details, etc.
I was simply supporting the article's data - their reported 33k tokens is probably roughly 150-165k.
That’s entirely dependent on how many plugins, MCP tools, agents you have, and if you have pre-filling of all available tools enabled. Best way to avoid unnecessary expense is to avoid it all and use CLI tools instead.
A smarter approach (progressive disclosure) for tools has been implemented by (I presume all) the harnesses over recent months, but you're 100% right in any case.
I enable tools specific to each project only in that project, and have very very few in my global config. Like <5k tokens worth.
I was simply supporting the article's data - their reported 33k tokens is probably roughly 150-165k.