Disabling MCPs doesn't persist across sessions #13763

Activity

1. andreagrandi

   added

   bugSomething isn't workingSomething isn't working

   on Feb 15, 2026
2. github-actions

   assigned

   rekram1-node

   on Feb 15, 2026
3. dawidbednarczyk commented on Feb 25, 2026

   

   dawidbednarczyk

   on Feb 25, 2026

   More actions

   +1 — This is a significant pain point for users with many MCP servers configured.

   Use case

   I run 8+ MCP servers (RADKit, Webex RAG, CDETS, Topic Search, GitHub Enterprise, Chrome DevTools, etc.). In a 128k context window, MCP tool definitions alone consume ~40k tokens — a third of available context before any conversation begins. Being able to start lean and enable MCPs on-demand was a killer workflow in Claude Code, where the disable state persisted across sessions.

   With OpenCode, the toggle resets every restart, so I ended up permanently removing servers from config instead of just disabling them — which means re-adding them later when I need them. That's exactly the wrong tradeoff.

   Technical root cause

   After reading the source, the gap is clear:

   • Model selection persists to Global.Path.state/model.json via Filesystem.writeJson (local.tsx L123-151)
   • MCP toggle only updates in-memory Instance.state (mcp/index.ts L554-564) — no filesystem write

   The pattern already exists for models; MCPs just need the same treatment.

   Suggested implementation

   The lowest-friction approach: save toggle state to Global.Path.state/mcp-state.json (mirroring model.json), and read it back during MCP initialization in state(). The local.tsx model persistence pattern is a clean template.

   Prior art

   Claude Code has persistent MCP disable at the UI level. See also anthropics/claude-code#10447 where users calculated ~65K tokens lost per session to unused MCP tool definitions — a compelling argument for start-lean-enable-on-demand workflows.

   Related issues

   • Option to Enable / Disable MCP Servers (via TUI) #514 — Original MCP toggle feature request
   • [FEATURE]: Add Disable ALL mcps #13564 — "Disable ALL MCPs" toggle
   • [FEATURE]: Disable plugins via cli #7687 — CLI flags (--no-mcp)

   👍React with 👍2Reacted by micheldenario and blfernandezGit
4. micheldenario commented on Mar 2, 2026

   

   micheldenario

   on Mar 2, 2026

   More actions

   Second this, I will also like this to persist across sessions like vscode does, I don't want MCP's to be auto-enabled unless I activate them when I need them. I have big mcp tools that can consume a lot of tokens if activated.
5. iMaxTomas commented on Apr 12, 2026

   

   iMaxTomas

   on Apr 12, 2026

   More actions

   I've conducted an exhaustive investigation into why MCPs cannot be effectively disabled in OpenCode, and I believe your issue (#13763) touches on a symptom of a deeper architectural problem that may not be fully solved by simply persisting toggle state.

   Key finding: at least two MCPs — chrome-devtools and morphllm-fast-apply — are hardcoded into the opencode binary itself. They spawn automatically on every startup (visible in logs as service=mcp key=chrome-devtools type=local found) even when the user's opencode.json contains no reference to them.

   This means:

   • Persisting /mcps toggle state will help user-defined MCPs, but it will not give users a way to turn off these binary-bundled defaults.
   • Attempting to add "chrome-devtools": { "enabled": false } to opencode.json currently produces a fatal schema validation error (Invalid input mcp.chrome-devtools) in the session attach path.
   • The public JSON schema (https://opencode.ai/config.json) does not even declare an mcp property; validation is handled by an internal zod schema that rejects built-in names.

   I've opened a dedicated feature request (#22188) specifically requesting an official mechanism to disable built-in MCP servers. It may be worth considering that fix alongside toggle persistence so that users can actually opt out of all MCPs, not just the ones they manually configured.

   Evidence summary: #22188
6. thdxr

   removed

   bugSomething isn't workingSomething isn't working

   on May 3, 2026
7. rekram1-node commented on May 22, 2026

   

   rekram1-node

   on May 22, 2026

   Collaborator

   More actions

   Key finding: at least two MCPs — chrome-devtools and morphllm-fast-apply — are hardcoded into the opencode binary itself. They spawn automatically on every startup (visible in logs as service=mcp key=chrome-devtools type=local found) even when the user's opencode.json contains no reference to them.

   This is NOT true
8. rekram1-node commented on May 22, 2026

   

   rekram1-node

   on May 22, 2026

   Collaborator

   More actions

   Currently /mcps is only for toggling on/off on the fly not for persisting but yeah prolly should
9. rekram1-node

   marked MCP server cannot keep off in Mac desktop app #18664 as a duplicate of this issue on Jun 12, 2026
10. rekram1-node

    marked Bug: /mcp toggling doesn't persist changes to opencode.json #17799 as a duplicate of this issue on Jun 12, 2026
11. rekram1-node

    marked fix(mcp): disabled MCPs reactivate after provider config change #28428 as a duplicate of this issue on Jun 12, 2026
12. github-actions commented on Jul 22, 2026

    

    github-actionsBot

    on Jul 22, 2026 – with GitHub Actions

    Contributor

    More actions

    To stay organized issues are automatically closed after 60 days of no activity. If the issue is still relevant please open a new one.
13. github-actions

    closed this as not plannedon Jul 22, 2026