Switch and put back

See what your MCP servers cost, move them behind Delta MCP and put them back, from a terminal. Each plan is shown before anything changes.

Three commands do the whole switch: diagnose shows what your servers cost, use moves them behind Delta MCP, and restore puts them back direct. The app does the same from Connectors.

See what your servers cost

# read the tools of every server (starts each one for a moment)
mcpdelta diagnose
# the same list without starting any server
mcpdelta diagnose --list
# the same figures as JSON, for a script
mcpdelta diagnose --json

You get one row per server: its name, the apps it is installed in, its tools and the estimated tokens of its definitions. The last lines give the total, and the total with Delta MCP when it is smaller. A server that asks you to sign in, or does not answer, is shown as such and left out of the total. For the two costs behind those figures, read How to reduce MCP token usage.

Move servers behind Delta MCP

# the plan for every server, then the question
mcpdelta use
# one server, by the name diagnose shows
mcpdelta use github
# the plan only: nothing is changed
mcpdelta use --all --dry-run
# no question, for a script
mcpdelta use --all --yes

With no name, use moves every server, as --all does. It finds them in the settings files of your apps and in Claude Desktop’s extensions. Servers from Claude Code plugins or remote connectors are not offered here: not yet.

Before anything changes, the command prints the plan:

Switch 1 server to Delta MCP: github
  • Claude Code: add mcpdelta
  • Claude Code: remove “github” (it goes through mcpdelta)
  A copy of every file changed is kept; “mcpdelta restore” puts everything back as before.
Go ahead? [y/N]

Each step is one change to one app. mcpdelta is added first, then the direct entry goes. A line that starts with ! is a warning: Codex and Zed stay direct, because Delta MCP does not edit them yet. Answer y (the French prompt shows [o/N], and o works too) to apply. Anything else stops with nothing changed, and exit code 0. Without a terminal and without --yes, the command prints the plan, says on stderr to add --yes, and stops.

When it is done, restart your sessions. The command then connects once to each connector, keeps its tool list for the next conversation and learns the shape of its answers from at most 12 reads. It keeps shapes, never values.

Put them back

# the plan, then the question
mcpdelta restore
# one connector, by the name status shows
mcpdelta restore github
# every connector, no question
mcpdelta restore --all --yes

The plan puts each entry back in each app as it was. It removes mcpdelta from an app when no connector is left behind it there. restore --all does what Put everything back does in Settings. See Put everything back.

The dated copy

Before Delta MCP rewrites a JSON settings file, it copies it into the backups folder of its data folder. The name is the date and time, the parent folder and the file name, such as 2026-10-07T09-12-44-123Z-.cursor-mcp.json.

A shared .mcp.json is never edited. Its servers are turned off for you only, in the project’s .claude/settings.local.json.

Restart your apps

Restart your sessions after use or restore. Quit Claude Desktop (⌘ Q) before a change that pauses one of its extensions, and reopen it after. See Supported AI apps.

If a step fails

A failed step prints ✗ and its reason, and the command exits with 5. The other steps still run and nothing is rolled back: mcpdelta restore goes back. One switch runs at a time. If the app is changing your apps, the command waits up to a minute, then stops with nothing changed.

To read the tools of your connectors again without switching anything, run mcpdelta refresh. It lists every remote connector, and a local one only when it has no list yet or npm has a newer version of its package. It calls no tool. See the Command line overview for the other commands.

Updated 7 October 2026 Something missing or wrong? Open an issue