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· 5 min read

CLI: the command-line revival in the AI era

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Engineering Agent Tools

The claim

The command line is having an AI-era revival. Feishu, DingTalk, WeCom, Google, Stripe and others have all recently open-sourced CLI products. A CLI is an AI’s native language — much easier for an agent to call than a GUI.

A curved terminal console

Why CLIs fit AI

Natural advantages

  1. Text in / text out — models are native text machines
  2. Structured output — easy to parse
  3. Clear errors — failure messages you can debug
  4. Composable — pipes let you chain a real workflow
  5. Self-explaining — --help is progressive disclosure and saves tokens

A concrete case

# GUI: import into an editor → find the cut → split → export
# CLI: one command
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -t 00:00:5 -c copy part1.mp4

Two projects worth knowing

1. CLI Anything

What it does: turn any open-source app into a CLI, in one command.

The automated loop (7 steps):

  1. Read the source and find the API behind the UI
  2. Plan command groups
  3. Design inputs and outputs
  4. Implement
  5. Write tests
  6. Update docs
  7. Publish

In the wild: they CLI-ized draw.io (a drag-and-drop diagram tool).

  • Before: drag boxes in a UI
  • After: an agent can draw flowcharts and architecture diagrams from the command line
  • The files still open in draw.io
# Install
/plugin marketplace add HKUDS/CLI-Anything
/plugin install cli-anything

# Use
/cli-anything:cli-anything ./drawio

Software they have tested: OBS, draw.io, and nine others — 11 in total.

2. OpenCLI

What it does: turn a website or Electron app into a CLI.

Install:

npm install -g @jackwener/opencli

Examples:

# Hacker News top stories
opencli hackernews top --limit 5

# Ask Grok
opencli grok ask "your question"

# Search jobs on BOSS Zhipin
opencli boss search --city Qingdao --keyword "software engineer" -f json

Traits:

  • dozens of sites and tools
  • you can add custom commands
  • it drives a browser and returns results to the terminal

CLI vs MCP

Where MCP is weaker

  1. Context cost — you inject every tool name, parameter, and example
  2. Hostile to humans — a black box; failures are hard to debug and reproduce
  3. No pipes — you cannot compose a pipeline the way you can with a CLI

Token comparison (ScaleKit):

  • Official GitHub MCP vs CLI
  • CLI used a multiple fewer tokens than MCP

The pipe advantage

# One pipeline for a real job
gh issue list --repo openclaw/openclaw |
  ConvertFrom-Json |
  Where-Object {$_.title -like "*bug*"} |
  Sort-Object created_at |
  Export-Csv bugs.csv

Doing the same over MCP means many tool calls, more tokens, more wall time.

Where MCP is stronger

  1. Multi-tenant — strict permissioning
  2. Standard install packages — a shared auth story
  3. Cloud deploy — fits agent platforms in the cloud

The two are starting to meet

  • Claude Code / Codex: tool search — load MCP on demand (borrowing CLI-style progressive disclosure)
  • MCPorter: turn an MCP into a CLI an agent can call

Data flowing through glass pipes

Official CLIs

GitHub CLI

# Sign in after install
gh auth login

# List issues
gh issue list --repo openclaw/openclaw

# Create a repo
gh repo create my-new-repo

More official CLIs: Feishu, DingTalk, WeCom, Stripe, and others.

What I take from this

1. Product design

If you want software an AI agent can call, prefer a CLI over MCP first:

  • fewer tokens
  • cheaper to build (no full MCP protocol)
  • friendly to humans and models (you can test and debug it yourself)

2. What CLI Anything is really for

If your software later needs a CLI, CLI Anything is basically an auto-generated command-line spec.

That means:

  • you do not hand-write CLI code
  • the AI reads the source and generates the CLI
  • about 46 minutes end-to-end on draw.io

3. Workflow automation

CLI tools + an AI agent can:

  • drive software and websites
  • chain tools into a workflow
  • cut repetitive hand work

4. What you can use today

  • CLI Anything: CLI-ize open-source software
  • OpenCLI: CLI-ize websites / Electron apps
  • Official CLIs: GitHub, Feishu, DingTalk, …
  • MCPorter: MCP → CLI (from the OpenClaw author)

Action list

  • Try CLI Anything on an open-source tool you already use
  • Browse the sites OpenCLI supports and pick one to automate
  • Think about designing your own product CLI-first
  • Watch the MCP / CLI merge

Source: V2EX — TechShrimp

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