Best AI Gateway to Optimize Claude Code Token Cost

TL;DR: Claude Code token costs grow fast on agent-heavy workflows because every tool definition gets injected into the context. An AI gateway in front of Claude Code lets you cache responses, swap to cheaper models, and use Code Mode to cut tool definition overhead. After testing the setup with Bifrost , the largest single optimisation is Code Mode for MCP, which reduces tool definition tokens by 58% to 92.8% depending on tool count. This post assumes familiarity with Claude Code , MCP server ba