Replace token-heavy Jira and GitLab MCPs with CLI skills
The author had Claude run --help on Atlassian and GitLab CLIs, saved the actions as Markdown, and built lightweight agent plugins that cut token use.
Done withClaude Code
- What they did
- After finding the Jira and GitLab MCPs used too many tokens, the author installed the Atlassian and GitLab CLIs instead. They had Claude recursively run --help on each CLI and save every available action into separate Markdown files. Those files became two lightweight plugins, acli-skills and glab-skills, so the agent stops re-discovering commands each time.
- How it went
- The author says the plugins do what the MCPs did with significantly less token consumption. No measured figures are given. Both repositories were open-sourced.
- Worth knowing
- The author still finds MCPs worthwhile for rapid prototyping and internal tools, especially sampling and progress notifications for long-running tasks, so this swap suits single-purpose integrations.
Try it yourself with Claude Code
I use the [Jira, GitLab, or other] command line tool and want to replace its token-heavy MCP server with a lightweight skill. Run --help on the CLI and its subcommands, then write a Markdown skill file listing the common actions I need, such as [create ticket, list merge requests, comment], with exact example commands. Stop when the skill works on one real read-only task, and ask me before running any command that creates, changes or deletes anything.
Source: HN · Sep 21, 2026
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