[Feature] Prompt to enable disabled MCP servers when tool search matches them

Resolved 💬 5 comments Opened Mar 25, 2026 by x-typo Closed Apr 24, 2026

Problem

When a user disables MCP servers via /mcp to reduce token overhead, Claude loses all visibility into those servers. If the user later asks Claude to use a tool from a disabled server, Claude reports it as "not currently configured" and has no way to help re-enable it.

This forces users to manually open /mcp, find the server, enable it, then re-ask their question. For users managing many MCP servers (5-10+) who want to keep only a few active at a time, this creates friction every time they need to "rotate" between servers.

Current behavior

  1. User disables aig-testrail via /mcp -> Disable
  2. User asks: "test connection with aig-testrail"
  3. Claude says: "aig-testrail is not currently configured" (no awareness it exists but is disabled)
  4. User must manually: /mcp -> select server -> Reconnect -> re-ask

Expected behavior

  1. User disables aig-testrail via /mcp -> Disable
  2. User asks: "test connection with aig-testrail"
  3. Claude (or tool search) detects aig-testrail exists but is disabled
  4. Claude prompts: "aig-testrail is disabled. Would you like me to enable it?"
  5. User confirms, server connects, Claude proceeds with the original request

Why this matters

  • Users with many MCP servers disable unused ones to reduce context token overhead (~31k tokens for 9 servers)
  • Disabling is the right behavior for cost/context management
  • But the re-enable workflow breaks the conversational flow
  • This is especially painful for users who rotate between servers depending on the task (e.g., Jira + Confluence for planning, TestRail + Harness for QA, Datalake for analytics)

Environment

  • Claude Code v2.1.83
  • macOS
  • 9+ user-configured MCP servers via ~/.claude.json

View original on GitHub ↗

This issue has 5 comments on GitHub. Read the full discussion on GitHub ↗