Equation 9 · Part 2 · The Token Tax of Giving a Model More Tools
Symbol n
What this part means
n is a part of this expression. Its role is fixed by the surrounding article and by the operations shown in the formula.
Its job in the formula
n is a part of this expression. Its role is fixed by the surrounding article and by the operations shown in the formula.
Full expression→Symbol n→Article meaning
The passage around this formula
That leaves the second meaning, and it is where the real cost lives. To discover what a server can do, a client still sends a tools/list request, and that response is the full tool catalogue — the same names, descriptions, and JSON Schemas that later get folded into T(n) on every inference call. The specification requires this operation to support pagination: “Pagination in MCP uses an opaque cursor-based approach, instead of numbered pages,” page size is “determined by the server,” and clients “ MUST NOT assume a fixed page size,” with the documentation naming the reason directly — pagination “is especially important when connecting to external services over the internet, but also useful…
Learn the underlying idea
A variable is a named place for a value. Its letter is a local label: x can mean position in one formula and a data point in another.
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Sources cited in the surrounding passage
These citations provide research context; check each source for the exact claim it supports.