Z.ai has released GLM-5.2, a 753B-parameter MIT-licensed open-weights model with a 1-million-token context window. Independent benchmark site Artificial Analysis ranks it first among open-weights models on their Intelligence Index v4.1, ahead of MiniMax-M3, DeepSeek V4 Pro, and Kimi K2.6. It also places second on Code Arena's WebDev leaderboard behind only Claude Fable 5, despite being text-only, and is available on OpenRouter at $1.40/$4.40 per million input/output tokens.
Quandri measured MCP tool schemas in its Claude Code setup and found significant context overhead across Linear, Notion, Slack, and Postgres. The post argues MCP can be slower, less reliable, and harder to debug than direct CLI/API usage. It recommends CLI-first workflows and on-demand Skills, while noting MCP still fits services without CLIs, non-developer users, bidirectional communication, and guarded production database access.