This is a continuation of my "Claude Code environment" series. After the previous post on automating git-config backups, this time I'm tackling a problem that sneaks up on you: MCP plugins you enabled once and forgot about keep chipping away at your context, and I'll walk through the three-stage pipeline that auto-disables them on a weekly schedule.
When you enable a plugin, its tool schema is injected at startup even if it's never called once. As these "just leave it on" plugins pile up, the token budget Claude actually has to work with quietly shrinks. In this article I connect detection, auto-disable, and cache archiving into a single flow with real code.
The problem: plugin management that adds but never subtracts
The motivation to install a new plugin is clear. "I want to use this tool" is an active urge. There's no equivalent motivation to remove one. You never get a moment where you notice "hmm, I haven't used that plugin lately."
At the start of every session, Claude Code injects the tool schemas of every plugin marked true under enabledPlugins in settings.json into the context. The more plugins that are "enabled but haven't been invoked once in 30 days," the more the top of your context gets filled with zero-contribution schema on every single run.
