| name | services-before-tokens |
| description | Routes tasks to external services (MCP, shell, n8n) before using AI tokens. Prevents wasteful AI processing for tool-solvable tasks. |
Services Before Tokens
Trigger
Any task that could be handled by an external tool, API, MCP, or automation service.
Action
STOP before generating AI output. Check if a service can do it instead:
Routing Priority
- File Operations → filesystem_mcp or shell commands
- Database Queries → Direct PostgreSQL/SQL
- Web Scraping → Playwright MCP
- Calculations → Python/calculator
- Git Operations → git CLI or GitHub MCP
- Memory/Context → Memory MCP
- n8n Workflows → Trigger webhook
- Document Search → Notion MCP or grep
- API Calls → Direct HTTP via curl/webhook
Anti-Patterns (Token Waste)
- AI reads file and summarizes → Use read_files tool
- AI "searches" codebase → Use grep or codebase_semantic_search
- AI calculates → Python one-liner
- AI formats JSON → jq command