contextpulse-mcp

Real-time context budget tracking for any AI coding agent.

Plug into Claude Code, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible tool and get:

• 📊 Live token budget bar per agent run
• 🔁 Loop detection (when an agent calls the same tool 3× in a row)
• ⚠️ Warning / critical alerts before context overflow
• 🗄️ Full run history stored in PostgreSQL
• 📈 Budget timeline for every run

No cloud. No telemetry. Runs entirely on your machine.

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How it works

ContextPulse is a transparent MCP server. You call its tracking tools from your agent's workflow. It counts tokens using tiktoken, updates a live budget in memory, persists everything to PostgreSQL, and fires alerts when thresholds are crossed.

Your agent → calls cp_track_tool_call → ContextPulse counts tokens
                                       → updates live budget
                                       → warns at 70% / 90%
                                       → detects loops
                                       → saves to DB

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Quick start

1. Start PostgreSQL

# macOS with Homebrew
brew services start postgresql@16

# or via Docker
docker run -d --name contextpulse-db \
  -e POSTGRES_DB=contextpulse \
  -p 5432:5432 postgres:16

2. Add to Claude Code (~/.claude/settings.json)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "contextpulse": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "contextpulse-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "DATABASE_URL": "postgresql://apple@localhost:5432/contextpulse"
      }
    }
  }
}

3. Add to Cursor (~/.cursor/mcp.json)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "contextpulse": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "contextpulse-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "DATABASE_URL": "postgresql://localhost:5432/contextpulse"
      }
    }
  }
}

The DB schema is created automatically on first run.

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Usage in your agent

1. cp_start_session   → get sessionId
2. cp_start_run       → get runId
3. cp_track_tool_call → after every tool call (pass tool name, args, output)
4. cp_get_budget      → check current budget at any time
5. cp_get_run_summary → full run summary with timeline
6. cp_end_run         → clean up

Example response from cp_track_tool_call

{
  "toolCallId": "a1b2c3...",
  "inputTokens": 142,
  "outputTokens": 87,
  "totalTokens": 229,
  "budget": {
    "used": 14820,
    "limit": 200000,
    "percentUsed": 7.41
  },
  "budgetStatus": "ok",
  "alert": null
}

When budget hits 70%:

{
  "budgetStatus": "warning",
  "alert": "warning"
}

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Environment variables

Variable	Default	Description
DATABASE_URL	postgresql://apple@localhost:5432/contextpulse	PostgreSQL connection string
CONTEXT_LIMIT	200000	Token limit per session
WARNING_THRESHOLD_PCT	70	Warning alert threshold (%)
CRITICAL_THRESHOLD_PCT	90	Critical alert threshold (%)
LOOP_DETECTION_THRESHOLD	3	Same tool calls before loop alert
MODEL	claude-sonnet-4-6	Model label for records

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What gets stored

cp_sessions       -- one row per coding session
cp_runs           -- one row per agent task
cp_tool_calls     -- every intercepted tool call
cp_budget_snapshots -- token usage timeline per run
cp_alerts         -- warnings, criticals, loop detections

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Roadmap

• [ ] Phase 2: Next.js real-time dashboard with WebSocket stream
• [ ] Phase 3: Loop detection graph + BullMQ alert jobs
• [ ] Phase 4: Run diff engine — compare two agent runs side by side

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License

MIT