Developer builds Trello MCP server in Go, cutting response sizes to a third of official
koius · reddit · 2026-10-21
Frustrated that existing Trello MCP servers filled the context window, the author built trello-mcp: a local single-binary MCP server in Go with 48 tools, then measured character counts for identical read calls on a real board with 144 cards:
- 16 cards in a list: 6,754 chars (summary mode; 9,112 full) vs 29,141 for Atlassian's hosted server and 45,335 for delorenj/mcp-server-trello 1.8.1
- 50 board actions: 15,494 vs 55,331 vs 71,008
- Single card details: the official server was actually smaller, 2,662 vs 2,825
The author caveats this measures size, not completeness (servers return different fields), on one board over one day; a QA colleague reported his Claude usage dropped by more than half after switching, though that's anecdotal. The official server wins on zero install, web/mobile access, Inbox, Planner and keyword search, but in the author's account it couldn't reach cross-org guest boards, delete comments, create labels, or handle attachments. The repo ships a harness to rerun the measurement on your own board.
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