Last month I shipped MCP Spine v0.1 — a basic proxy that sat between Claude Desktop and MCP servers. It did schema minification and security basics.

Since then, it's grown into a full middleware stack. Here's everything in v0.2.5 and why each piece exists.

The Starting Point

57 tools. 5 servers. Claude Desktop config file with one entry pointing to Spine. Everything routes through the proxy.

pip install mcp-spine mcp-spine init

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The setup wizard detects your installed servers (npx, node, Python), asks what features you want, and writes a tailored config.

Schema Minification: 61% Fewer Tokens

Every tool call starts with the LLM reading tool schemas. With 57 tools, that's thousands of tokens before the conversation even begins.

Spine's minifier strips $schema , additionalProperties , parameter descriptions, titles, and defaults — keeping only what the LLM actually needs.…