Skills catalog budget setting has no CLI or TUI equivalent of the Web per-server setting

Which version line?

v2 — current (@modelcontextprotocol/inspector@latest)

Which client?

All / shared core

Inspector version

2.7.0 (git tag) — static code-review finding, not run locally

Node version

N/A — static code review, no live run performed

Operating system (and browser, for the web client)

N/A — static code review

Transport

Not applicable / never connected

MCP server under inspection

N/A — this is a static code-review finding comparing clients/web/src/components/groups/ServerSettingsForm/ServerSettingsForm.tsx against clients/cli/src/cli.ts and clients/tui/tui.tsx in the 2.7.0 tag source, not a live reproduction against a running MCP server.

Steps to reproduce

Found via static review of the 2.7.0 tag source, not a live run.

1. Web exposes a per-server "skills catalog budget" setting (skillCatalogMaxBytes / skillCatalogMaxSkills) through ServerSettingsForm.tsx, which flows into resolveSkillCatalogBudget() (core/mcp/skills.ts).
2. Searching clients/cli/src/cli.ts for skillCatalogMax / skill-catalog finds no matching flag.
3. Searching clients/tui/tui.tsx and clients/tui/src/App.tsx for the same finds no matching flag either.
4. By contrast, other per-connection settings that vary the same way (--protocol-era, and a CIMD metadata-document URL option for OAuth) ARE present in all three clients' entry points.

I have not run the CLI or TUI to confirm the absence live; flagging what static grep across the 2.7.0 tag source shows.

Expected behavior

Either the CLI and TUI expose an equivalent way to configure the skills-catalog budget per connection (matching Web), or, if the Web-only scoping is intentional, that's documented explicitly rather than left to be discovered by diffing the three entry points.

Actual behavior

A CLI or TUI user has no way to configure the skills-catalog budget for a server at all — they're stuck with the default (SKILL_MAX_CATALOG_SKILLS / SKILL_MAX_CATALOG_BYTES) regardless of what a server's catalog actually needs, while a Web user can tune it per server. More generally, nothing in the repo tracks or asserts that CLI/TUI ship the same "which settings can this server's connection override" surface as Web at a given release, so this kind of drift can happen silently.

Suggested fix: add --skill-catalog-max-bytes / --skill-catalog-max-skills (or equivalent) flags to the CLI and TUI, or document the Web-only scoping if intentional. Longer term, a small matrix/test enumerating each per-server setting and which of the three clients exposes it would catch this kind of drift automatically.

Logs, errors, or screenshots

No response

Already prototyped a fix?

No response

Before you submit

• I searched existing issues and this is not a duplicate.
• This is not a security vulnerability report (those go through the private advisory process).

Compare clients/web/src/components/groups/ServerSettingsForm/ServerSettingsForm.tsx with clients/cli/src/cli.ts, clients/tui/tui.tsx, and clients/tui/src/App.tsx, then trace resolveSkillCatalogBudget() in core/mcp/skills.ts. Check how existing per-connection settings are wired and define whether CLI/TUI flags or explicit Web-only documentation is intended. Done means the three client surfaces have an agreed, tested setting scope.