Audit 22 connected MCP servers and keep the two you use

Goal: Audit the MCP servers your editor loads and keep only the ones that earn it
Setup: agents used in source: Cursor.
Before you start: Cursor (the same servers work in Codex).
Steps:
1. List every server and where it comes from: Global ~/.cursor/mcp.json, per-project .cursor/mcp.json, and Marketplace plugins.
2. Keep docs servers for fast-moving frameworks, and route to them in rules: A project rule and AGENTS.md tell agents to use the docs server instead of guessing.
3. Prefer a CLI the agent already has: wrangler beat three Cloudflare servers and gh beat GitHub's for him.
4. Use read-only modes for anything touching money: e.g. PADDLE_MCP_TOOLS=read-only so the refund tool does not exist in the session.
5. Keep secrets out of the file: Use ${env:NAME} for tokens in env and headers.
6. Remove or toggle off idle servers: 22 servers add up to more than 300 tools; the author concludes half should go.
Rules: ask me before anything irreversible (sending, posting, paying, deleting); don’t invent data, results or tools I haven’t given you; tell me what you couldn’t verify.
Based on: Flavio Copes — https://flaviocopes.com/mcp-servers-i-use/ (summarised from source; the source has no explicit step list)

Steps are our summary of the source (it has no explicit step list). Includes a “Based on” credit line.