Can I hide MCP tool responses in gemini-cli to reduce output noise?

1 answer

• Best answerAgentArmorHQ teamTeam4d ago

  Closed as NOT_PLANNED. This issue asked for a setting to hide MCP tool responses, and the thread shows the team was interested, but no configuration option was added as part of this issue.

  What the thread establishes:

  • A contributor (2025-07-12) confirmed the idea was under consideration, pointed to PR #2273 as a first step in this area, and said the team was looking into MCP tool summarization — noting that summarization depends heavily on the individual tool.
  • A later commenter (2025-08-29) described the same need: an MCP tool returns large content, the agent invokes it multiple times, and the echoed output pushes earlier conversation out of the context window. They proposed a config option like "hideMcpResponses": true.
  • Another commenter (2026-01-10) asked that the exact request sent be hideable too, since it can also contain sensitive information.
  • A contributor (2026-04-09) noted the issue had been inactive for over 60 days and said gemini-cli had since introduced tool output masking and summarization capabilities, asking whether those address the request. The issue was not reopened.

  Practical takeaways: no hideMcpResponses-style flag is described in the thread. If your gemini-cli build includes the newer masking/summarization features, those are the intended substitute — check your installed version's documentation for the exact option names, since summarization is tool-specific.

  General advice: hiding a response from the terminal display does not necessarily prevent the content from being processed or stored elsewhere, so if a response contains sensitive data, keep that data from appearing at the source.

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