> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.getmcpulse.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Find dead tools

> Tools your server registers and nobody calls, priced against the sessions paying for them.

A dead tool is registered in the [startup payload](/sdk/what-is-sent) and has no calls in the range you are looking at. It is not free: its schema is sent to the model at the start of **every** session.

## 1. Find them

Two places, same set:

* [**Tool health**](/tools/health) — the **never used** badge, with the schema size beside it.
* [**Insights**](/insights/dead-tool) — the same tools, priced: schema tokens × sessions in range, in dollars.

## 2. Widen the range first

This is the step people skip. The rule is scoped to what you are looking at, so a tool used once a month is dead in a 7-day window and alive in a 90-day one.

Set the range to 90 days before deciding anything is genuinely unused.

## 3. Work out why it is dead

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="It cannot be reached">
    Check this first, because it is invisible from every other screen. If the tool requires an argument that no other tool's output provides — an internal id, a token, a cursor — the model has no path to a valid call.

    Look at the [pairs](/metrics/tool-pairs) for your live tools: if nothing returns the value this tool needs, that is the whole answer.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="The model does not know when to use it">
    The most common cause. The description says what the tool *does* rather than what question it *answers*.

    "Queries the reports table" tells a model nothing about when to reach for it. "Get a saved report by name, or list saved reports for a customer" does.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Another tool covers it">
    A general search that also handles the specific case, so the specific tool never wins. Check whether the general tool's calls include the ones this tool was built for — if so, this one is redundant rather than undiscovered.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Nobody needs it">
    Built for a workflow that did not materialise. Fine. Remove it.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## 4. Pick one of three

|                             | When                                                                                                                                                      |
| --------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Remove it**               | Nobody needs it, or another tool covers it. The schema cost goes immediately.                                                                             |
| **Rewrite the description** | The model cannot find it. Lead with the question it answers.                                                                                              |
| **Merge it**                | It does something useful the model never reaches. Fold it into a neighbour as a parameter — one schema instead of two, and one fewer choice to get wrong. |

Merging is usually right when the underlying work is genuinely valuable. It is what MCPulse's own [MCP server](/mcp/overview) does.

## 5. Confirm

Dead-tool status is computed live from the range, so a removed tool disappears from the list as soon as a client initialises against the new build and sends a fresh tool list.

A tool whose description you rewrote reappears as an ordinary row the moment it is called once.

<Note>
  A tool you removed from your code keeps its last recorded schema size until a new startup payload replaces the list. Restart and connect a client to refresh it.
</Note>

## Related

* [Dead tools](/tools/dead)
* [Schema size](/metrics/schema-size)
* [Cut context cost](/guides/cut-context-cost)