Retooling Continue with our own tools — local MCP servers that replace the built-in agent tools (terminal, search, edit) with sharper, more controllable versions, plus a progressive-disclosure gateway and a tool-factory skill for growing the kit.
The premise: the default tools are fine, but your own can be more Unicode-robust, cheaper on tokens, and safer to grant — and once you can build one MCP, you can build the rest.
The thinking behind the kit — what to replace, and how to keep token cost down.
The full design: the background-job shell MCP, the maturin packaging seam, Continue wiring, tool policies, and the "ouroboros" tool-factory skill. Start here.
Which built-in tools are worth replacing, and the direct-registration vs. gateway tradeoff for keeping tool schemas cheap at rest.
Starter MCP servers, in build order. Full source in continue-mcp/.
hello-mcp start here
Proves MCP is enabled in your build: ping → pong, echo, whoami.
shell-mcp
The flagship terminal runner — async, background jobs, tree-kill, timeouts.
search-mcp
ripgrep-backed search; replaces the built-in Grep / Glob search.
edit-mcp
Unicode-robust edit; replaces built-in Edit / Create file.
gateway-mcp
Progressive disclosure — many tools collapsed behind 3 meta-tools.
skills/new-mcp-tool
The tool factory: a skill that scaffolds the next MCP server.