mcp-circuit-breaker

# mcp-circuit-breaker — MCP Tool Failure Guard MCP tools can fail silently or return partial results, leading to cascading retry loops that waste tokens and degrade session quality. This skill detects failure patterns, trips a circuit breaker to halt retries, proposes alternatives, and resets when the tool recovers. > **Scope distinction** > - Claude Code native retry: low-level transport retries (transparent, fast) > - mcp-circuit-breaker: **session-level guard** — detects repeated semantic failures, intervenes before token waste compounds --- ## Triggers - `/mcp-circuit-breaker` - "MCP failing", "MCP keeps erroring", "tool isn't working", "circuit-breaker" - "same error keeps happening", "tool call looping", "MCP timeout" - Automatic: when the same MCP tool name appears in 3+ consecutive failed calls within a session --- ## Circuit States ``` CLOSED → Normal operation (tool calls pass through) OPEN → Circuit tripped (calls blocked, alternatives proposed) HALF-OPEN → Recovery probe (1 test call allowed, resets if success) ``` Default thresholds: - **Trip threshold**: 3 consecutive failures of the same tool - **Half-open probe**: after 60s cooldown (or explicit user command) - **Reset**: 1 successful call in HALF-OPEN state → back to CLOSED --- ## Execution Steps ### Step 1. Detect Failure Pattern Identify the failing tool and failure mode: ```bash # Check MCP server config cat .claude/settings.json 2>/dev/null | grep -A5 '"mcpServers"' || echo "No MCP con...