The open routing layer for AI tools: an MCP server that routes agent tool calls (search, extract, browse) across providers per policy — cost, latency, pinning, deny lists — with failover and the routing decision on every result. BYOK.
The open routing layer for AI tools. Every tool call routed per policy — cheapest capable provider by default, fast / premium / pinned / deny-list policies available — with automatic failover and the decision on every result.
npx frugal-mcp mcp install
That installs Frugal as an MCP server in any agent client present on this machine — Claude Desktop, Cursor, or Claude Code — and wires it idempotently.
This npm package is a thin Node wrapper. On first run it downloads the matching Go binary from the GitHub release (darwin/linux, arm64/amd64), verifies its sha256 against the SHA256SUMS file fetched over TLS from the same release, and caches it under ~/.cache/frugal-mcp/<version>/. Subsequent invocations exec the cached binary directly. Release artifacts are also cosign-signed, but this wrapper does not verify signatures — use the curl installer if you want that.
frugal__execute — describe the job (intent, optional priority); Frugal classifies it onto a capability and routes it under your policy, returning the full routing trace.frugal__search — routed across SearXNG, Marginalia, Wikipedia (all free), Serper, and You.com.frugal__extract — routed across go-readability (free, local) and Firecrawl.frugal__browse — Browserless.strategy (cheap / fast / premium), explicit order, deny lists in ~/.frugal/config/models.yaml.Free providers work without any API keys. Add SERPER_API_KEY, YDC_API_KEY, FIRECRAWL_API_KEY, or BROWSERLESS_TOKEN in your shell to enable the paid rungs.
Source, full docs, and the routing table: https://github.com/brainsparker/frugal · https://frugal.sh
BUSL 1.1 — self-hosting and internal commercial use are permitted; each release converts to Apache 2.0 four years after publication.
FAQs
The open routing layer for AI tools: an MCP server that routes agent tool calls (search, extract, browse) across providers per policy — cost, latency, pinning, deny lists — with failover and the routing decision on every result. BYOK.
We found that frugal-mcp demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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