Giving every agent every MCP tool backfired, so they built virtual servers
Background-Job-862 · reddit · 2026-07-26
A team says exposing every tool from every MCP server to every agent turned out to be a mistake.
They had about 15 MCP servers registered, and each connected agent could see the full tool list. That caused two problems:
- Tool selection got worse as the list grew to 80+ tools; the model started choosing vaguely similar tools from the wrong server.
- Security scoping was too broad because agents could see tools they had no business touching.
Their fix was to introduce a virtual MCP server:
- Curate a small, scoped subset of tools from multiple real servers.
- Present that subset as one server per team, workflow, or agent.
- Example: a customer-support bot sees only ticketing and CRM tools, not billing or infra tools.
Unexpected upside: tool selection improved, and security reviews became much easier because the virtual server’s tool list clearly defines what the agent can do.
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