The interface layer for the agent era
CLIs are how AI agents get work done
The difference between chat and action is tools. CLIs let AI agents inspect systems, make changes, and verify the result.
See it in action:
What builders are saying
Real signals from people actually building agent-native tools.
unpopular (maybe?) opinion: MCP is dead in the water. […] api & cli will win. […] connect 10 servers with 5 tools each and you've burned 50 tool definitions worth of tokens before your conversation even starts. […] the "exec" tool paired with on-demand skills is all you need.
MCP is dead? […] I mostly use Skills and CLI lately.
Then we'll release the new agent-optimized CLI for Basecamp. Love to see agents drive their own accommodations.
CLIs are super exciting precisely because they are a "legacy" technology, which means AI agents can natively and easily use them, combine them, interact with them via the entire terminal toolkit. […] It's 2026. Build. For. Agents.
Introducing the Google Workspace CLI […] built for humans and agents. Google Drive, Gmail, Calendar, and every Workspace API. 40+ agent skills included.
2026 is the year of Skills & CLIs
This is why I'm not a fan of MCP, it speaks only to machines. Better CLI tooling, output formatting, docs helps both machines and humans.
Companies that market to developers will soon start “marketing” to coding agents as well. [...] Agent-friendly UI/UX (often: a good CLI) will be prioritized.
I tried with an MCP first but now I just use the CLI.
[…] I find CLI tools are almost always a better bet than MCPs when you have an unleashed coding agent like Claude Code in YOLO mode
there's a reason I didn't add mcp support to openclaw (except via mcporter mcp-to-cli converter)
Convert chrome-devtools (or really any) MCP to compiled cli […] It will call help menu and learn as needed. Progressive disclosure, no context pollution.
CLI is the rare interface where making things better for agents makes things better for humans too. And vice versa.
It's time for you to think about how an agent can use your app via CLI. In the future, none of us (including our agents) are going to want to log in to a web interface to do anything.
unpopular (maybe?) opinion: MCP is dead in the water. […] api & cli will win. […] connect 10 servers with 5 tools each and you've burned 50 tool definitions worth of tokens before your conversation even starts. […] the "exec" tool paired with on-demand skills is all you need.
MCP is dead? […] I mostly use Skills and CLI lately.
Then we'll release the new agent-optimized CLI for Basecamp. Love to see agents drive their own accommodations.
CLIs are super exciting precisely because they are a "legacy" technology, which means AI agents can natively and easily use them, combine them, interact with them via the entire terminal toolkit. […] It's 2026. Build. For. Agents.
Introducing the Google Workspace CLI […] built for humans and agents. Google Drive, Gmail, Calendar, and every Workspace API. 40+ agent skills included.
2026 is the year of Skills & CLIs
This is why I'm not a fan of MCP, it speaks only to machines. Better CLI tooling, output formatting, docs helps both machines and humans.
Companies that market to developers will soon start “marketing” to coding agents as well. [...] Agent-friendly UI/UX (often: a good CLI) will be prioritized.
I tried with an MCP first but now I just use the CLI.
[…] I find CLI tools are almost always a better bet than MCPs when you have an unleashed coding agent like Claude Code in YOLO mode
there's a reason I didn't add mcp support to openclaw (except via mcporter mcp-to-cli converter)
CLI is the rare interface where making things better for agents makes things better for humans too. And vice versa.
It's time for you to think about how an agent can use your app via CLI. In the future, none of us (including our agents) are going to want to log in to a web interface to do anything.
unpopular (maybe?) opinion: MCP is dead in the water. […] api & cli will win. […] connect 10 servers with 5 tools each and you've burned 50 tool definitions worth of tokens before your conversation even starts. […] the "exec" tool paired with on-demand skills is all you need.
unpopular (maybe?) opinion: MCP is dead in the water. […] api & cli will win. […] connect 10 servers with 5 tools each and you've burned 50 tool definitions worth of tokens before your conversation even starts. […] the "exec" tool paired with on-demand skills is all you need.
MCP is dead? […] I mostly use Skills and CLI lately.
Then we'll release the new agent-optimized CLI for Basecamp. Love to see agents drive their own accommodations.
CLIs are super exciting precisely because they are a "legacy" technology, which means AI agents can natively and easily use them, combine them, interact with them via the entire terminal toolkit. […] It's 2026. Build. For. Agents.
Introducing the Google Workspace CLI […] built for humans and agents. Google Drive, Gmail, Calendar, and every Workspace API. 40+ agent skills included.
2026 is the year of Skills & CLIs
This is why I'm not a fan of MCP, it speaks only to machines. Better CLI tooling, output formatting, docs helps both machines and humans.
Companies that market to developers will soon start “marketing” to coding agents as well. [...] Agent-friendly UI/UX (often: a good CLI) will be prioritized.
I tried with an MCP first but now I just use the CLI.
[…] I find CLI tools are almost always a better bet than MCPs when you have an unleashed coding agent like Claude Code in YOLO mode
there's a reason I didn't add mcp support to openclaw (except via mcporter mcp-to-cli converter)
Convert chrome-devtools (or really any) MCP to compiled cli […] It will call help menu and learn as needed. Progressive disclosure, no context pollution.
CLI is the rare interface where making things better for agents makes things better for humans too. And vice versa.
It's time for you to think about how an agent can use your app via CLI. In the future, none of us (including our agents) are going to want to log in to a web interface to do anything.
unpopular (maybe?) opinion: MCP is dead in the water. […] api & cli will win. […] connect 10 servers with 5 tools each and you've burned 50 tool definitions worth of tokens before your conversation even starts. […] the "exec" tool paired with on-demand skills is all you need.
MCP is dead? […] I mostly use Skills and CLI lately.
Then we'll release the new agent-optimized CLI for Basecamp. Love to see agents drive their own accommodations.
CLIs are super exciting precisely because they are a "legacy" technology, which means AI agents can natively and easily use them, combine them, interact with them via the entire terminal toolkit. […] It's 2026. Build. For. Agents.
Introducing the Google Workspace CLI […] built for humans and agents. Google Drive, Gmail, Calendar, and every Workspace API. 40+ agent skills included.
2026 is the year of Skills & CLIs
This is why I'm not a fan of MCP, it speaks only to machines. Better CLI tooling, output formatting, docs helps both machines and humans.
Companies that market to developers will soon start “marketing” to coding agents as well. [...] Agent-friendly UI/UX (often: a good CLI) will be prioritized.
I tried with an MCP first but now I just use the CLI.
[…] I find CLI tools are almost always a better bet than MCPs when you have an unleashed coding agent like Claude Code in YOLO mode
there's a reason I didn't add mcp support to openclaw (except via mcporter mcp-to-cli converter)
CLI is the rare interface where making things better for agents makes things better for humans too. And vice versa.
It's time for you to think about how an agent can use your app via CLI. In the future, none of us (including our agents) are going to want to log in to a web interface to do anything.
unpopular (maybe?) opinion: MCP is dead in the water. […] api & cli will win. […] connect 10 servers with 5 tools each and you've burned 50 tool definitions worth of tokens before your conversation even starts. […] the "exec" tool paired with on-demand skills is all you need.
Or skip the search — install the agent skill · api/clis
Extensible terminal editor for coding, automation, and agent-assisted editing with a huge plugin ecosystem.
Google's open-source terminal AI agent for coding, automation, repository work, and structured command-line workflows.
Anthropic's terminal-native coding agent for repo understanding, edits, tests, and git workflows.
Official Redis terminal for running commands, inspecting keys, and debugging Redis-backed systems.
OpenAI's lightweight terminal coding agent for editing, running tasks, and agentic development loops.
Package manager CLI for installing, upgrading, and scripting developer tools on macOS and Linux.
Modal terminal editor with modern defaults, syntax awareness, and fast keyboard-driven editing loops.
Official GitHub CLI. PRs, issues, repos, actions, codespaces — all from the terminal.
Terminal multiplexer for persistent sessions, pane layouts, split workflows, and remote development loops.
AI pair programming CLI that edits code, runs tests, and collaborates on existing repos directly in the terminal.
Static analysis CLI for shell scripts that catches bugs, portability issues, and unsafe shell patterns before they ship.
Structured-data shell with pipelines, tables, and command output designed for machine-readable automation.
Official HashiCorp Vault CLI for secrets, auth, policies, leases, and secure automation workflows.
Official ACME client from EFF for obtaining, renewing, and automating TLS certificates from the terminal.
Open-source on-machine AI agent from Block for coding, execution, debugging, and multi-step developer workflows.
Terminal workspace and multiplexer for panes, tabs, sessions, and collaborative command-line workflows.
Official Basecamp CLI for agent-friendly Basecamp workflows and account operations from the terminal.
Official Salesforce CLI for org management, metadata operations, deploy flows, and automation.
GitOps CLI for syncing apps, inspecting health, managing projects, and operating Argo CD from the terminal.
Official Atlassian CLI for Jira and Confluence workflows from the terminal.
Official Firebase CLI for deploys, emulators, functions, hosting, auth, and project workflows from the terminal.
Official Shopify CLI for apps, themes, Hydrogen storefronts, and local development workflows.
Official Heroku CLI for apps, releases, add-ons, logs, pipelines, and platform operations from the terminal.
Official Amazon EKS CLI for provisioning, upgrading, and operating Kubernetes clusters on AWS.
Official Linode CLI for instances, networking, domains, storage, and cloud account operations.
Official MongoDB shell for querying, scripting, and administering MongoDB deployments from the terminal.
Official AWS CLI for managing compute, storage, networking, IAM, and nearly every AWS service.
Official Hetzner Cloud CLI for servers, volumes, networking, and infrastructure operations.
Official LaunchDarkly CLI for feature flag, project, and environment workflows from the terminal.
Official Contentful CLI for spaces, environments, content model workflows, and scripted CMS operations.
Official Auth0 CLI for tenant setup, applications, users, branding, and identity workflows from the terminal.
Official HubSpot CLI for local app development, CMS workflows, account operations, and agent-friendly terminal automation.
Official Algolia CLI for indices, search settings, analytics, and API workflows from the terminal.
Official CLI for Vercel — deploy and manage projects from terminal
Official Upstash CLI for Redis, Kafka, vector, and serverless data workflows from the terminal.
Official Okta CLI for bootstrapping orgs, apps, auth flows, and identity configuration from the terminal.
Kubernetes configuration customization CLI for layering, patching, and composing manifests without templates.
Official Flux CLI for GitOps bootstrapping, reconciliation, and cluster delivery workflows on Kubernetes.
Official WordPress command-line interface for core, plugins, themes, config, content, and multisite operations.
Official Microsoft Azure CLI for compute, storage, networking, identity, and cloud administration.
Prisma CLI for schema management, migrations, introspection, and database workflows in app projects.
Official Go toolchain CLI for builds, tests, modules, package discovery, and code generation workflows.
Code scanning CLI for static analysis, policy enforcement, and security checks across large codebases.
Official AWS CDK CLI for synthesizing, diffing, bootstrapping, and deploying cloud infrastructure as code.
Official AWS SAM CLI for building, testing, and deploying serverless applications on AWS.
Official Istio CLI for installing meshes, inspecting proxies, and debugging service mesh traffic.
Official Rust package manager and build CLI for dependencies, compilation, testing, and workspace metadata.
IaC security scanner CLI for Terraform, Kubernetes, cloud configs, and software packages.
Official Snyk CLI for scanning code, dependencies, containers, and IaC for security issues.
PHP dependency manager CLI for installs, updates, scripts, audits, and package metadata.
Official DigitalOcean CLI for droplets, apps, DNS, databases, and infrastructure operations.
Universal document conversion CLI for transforming Markdown, HTML, DOCX, PDF, and structured text formats.
Python dependency and packaging CLI for lockfiles, environments, publishing, and project management.
Functional package manager CLI for reproducible environments, flake workflows, builds, and dependency graphs.
Official AWS Copilot CLI for deploying and operating containerized apps on ECS and App Runner.
Official HashiCorp workload orchestration CLI for jobs, clusters, batch systems, and service deployments.
Official Kubernetes command-line tool for cluster management
Grafana administration CLI for plugins, resets, migrations, and local dashboard server management.
Official HashiCorp CLI for building identical machine images across cloud and virtualization platforms.
Official Linkerd CLI for installing the mesh, checking cluster health, and querying service traffic.
Official Sigstore CLI for signing, verifying, and attesting container images and software artifacts.
Official GitLab CLI — manage merge requests, issues, pipelines from terminal
Official AWS coding agent CLI for terminal chat, code tasks, and agentic developer workflows.
Official HashiCorp CLI for reproducible local development environments and VM-based project setup.
Elixir build and package CLI for project generation, dependencies, compilation, and releases.
Container registry CLI for inspecting, copying, signing, and syncing images without pulling them locally.
Smallstep CLI for certificate authority workflows, SSH, PKI automation, and identity operations.
Official AWS Amplify CLI for provisioning backends, auth, storage, and app environments from the terminal.
User-friendly shell CLI with autosuggestions, completions, and ergonomic interactive terminal workflows.
Official Loki query CLI for LogQL searches, tails, deletes, and structured log retrieval.
GPU-accelerated terminal and multiplexer with a strong CLI surface for panes, clients, and sessions.
Build automation CLI for JVM and polyglot projects with tasks, wrappers, dependency graphs, and build scans.
Official Kubernetes-in-Docker CLI for local clusters, testing, and reproducible Kubernetes dev environments.
Official MinIO client for S3-compatible object storage operations, mirroring, and admin tasks.
Official HashiCorp Boundary CLI for secure access sessions, targets, credentials, and identity-aware infrastructure access.
Spotify download CLI that fetches tracks, playlists, album art, and metadata using source matching.
Modern Python package and dependency manager CLI with lockfiles, environments, and PEP-first workflows.
Postman collection runner CLI for scripted API tests, smoke checks, and CI automation.
Container registry CLI for listing tags, fetching manifests, copying images, and registry automation.
Official Bitwarden CLI for vault access, secrets workflows, and password-manager automation from the terminal.
Terraform-focused security scanner CLI for detecting IaC misconfigurations before deployment.
Official Sanity CLI for project scaffolding, studio development, datasets, and content platform workflows.
Official .NET SDK CLI for project scaffolding, builds, package management, tests, and publishing.
Media downloader CLI for image galleries, creator pages, and collections across many supported sites.
Official Ionic CLI for creating, developing, and shipping Ionic and Capacitor apps.
Official Sentry CLI for releases, sourcemaps, issue workflows, and error-monitoring automation.
Prose linting CLI for docs, markdown, and editorial style enforcement in developer documentation.
Low-level packet capture CLI for debugging network traffic, protocols, and connectivity issues.
Official Scaleway CLI for compute, containers, networking, storage, and cloud automation.
Cloudflare Terraform import CLI for generating resources and state from existing zones and configs.
Shell formatter CLI for normalizing Bash and POSIX scripts across repos, CI, and editor workflows.
Haskell project and package manager CLI for builds, dependencies, GHC versions, and reproducible workflows.
Official Backblaze B2 CLI for buckets, files, lifecycle rules, and object storage automation.
Official Vultr CLI for instances, networking, Kubernetes, DNS, and cloud account automation.
Kong configuration CLI for diffing, syncing, and exporting API gateway state and drift.
Official Render CLI for services, deploys, workflows, environments, and cloud app operations.
Official Twitch CLI for mocking events, testing extensions, and developing against Twitch APIs locally.
Official CircleCI CLI for validating configs, running local jobs, and inspecting pipelines.
Official Akamai CLI for CDN, property, and edge workflow automation from the terminal.
Build, test, and manage Stripe integrations from the terminal
OCaml package manager CLI for compiler switches, packages, pins, and reproducible language environments.
Markdown linting CLI for CommonMark docs, repos, and content pipelines with configurable rules.
Official Civo CLI for Kubernetes clusters, cloud instances, networking, and account management.
Official Datadog CLI for CI visibility, test reporting, monitors, and deployment observability workflows.
Official UpCloud CLI for servers, managed Kubernetes, object storage, and cloud resources.
Official CLI for Railway — deploy apps and databases with one command
Official Figma CLI workflow for connecting code components to design systems and developer handoff flows.
Autonomous coding agent with terminal workflows, tool use, and long-running implementation loops for engineering tasks.
Open-source AI coding assistant with CLI and editor-driven workflows for code generation, editing, and local model use.
AI coding agent CLI built around plans, multi-step changes, and structured execution across larger code tasks.
Self-hosted AI coding assistant with terminal and editor integrations for completion, chat, and code understanding.
Service networking and service discovery CLI for distributed systems, service meshes, and infrastructure automation.
AI programming assistant for terminal-driven coding tasks, repo edits, and contextual code changes from the command line.
Python package installer and dependency management CLI used across virtualenv, build, and automation workflows.
AI engineering agent for repository tasks, pull requests, and code maintenance workflows across real codebases.
Infrastructure automation CLI for configuration management, remote execution, and repeatable server provisioning.
Local Kubernetes cluster CLI for testing clusters, addons, and platform workflows on a developer machine.
AI CLI agent focused on task execution, coding assistance, and terminal-native workflows for developers.
Prometheus server and tooling CLI surface for monitoring, scraping, rules, and observability workflows.
GPU-accelerated terminal emulator optimized for speed, keyboard-driven workflows, and modern developer setups.
Fast GPU-based terminal emulator with rich keyboard workflows, tabs, layouts, and scripting support.
Official PostgreSQL interactive terminal for querying databases, scripting admin tasks, and debugging SQL workflows.
Encrypt Kubernetes secrets for GitOps workflows using Bitnami Sealed Secrets from the command line.
Swift compiler and package tooling CLI used to build, run, and manage Swift projects.
Drizzle ORM migration and schema toolkit for managing SQL changes from code-first database workflows.
Classic terminal multiplexer for persistent sessions, detach/reattach workflows, and remote shell management.
Distributed SQL database CLI for cluster operations, SQL access, and admin workflows in CockroachDB.
Run lightweight k3s Kubernetes clusters in Docker for fast local development and agent-driven test environments.
Extension for Git that manages large files and binary assets without bloating repository history.
Container image builder CLI for OCI images without requiring a full Docker daemon.
Instant terminal sharing tool for collaborative shell sessions, remote support, and pair debugging.
React Native and Expo command-line tooling for app scaffolding, builds, simulators, and developer workflows.
Command-line client and tooling for querying, administering, and debugging ClickHouse clusters.
Network bandwidth measurement CLI for throughput testing between hosts and debugging network performance.
Smart shell history searcher with ranking, context, and faster recall for command-heavy terminal workflows.
Headless CMS command-line tooling for creating apps, managing content schemas, and local development workflows.
Command-line packet analyzer from Wireshark for captures, protocol inspection, and network debugging.
Prometheus utility CLI for validating configs, testing alert rules, and debugging metrics workflows.
CLI for Insomnia collections, API tests, linting, and CI-oriented contract validation workflows.
Kubernetes cluster operations CLI for creating, upgrading, and managing production clusters.
Manage and organize local clones of remote repositories with deterministic paths and fast shell workflows.
Official Ghost blog management CLI for installs, upgrades, deployments, and site operations.
Headless CMS CLI for bootstrapping projects, managing schema, and running Directus development workflows.
Java build automation and dependency management CLI for packaging, testing, and release workflows.
Application build, deploy, and release workflow CLI from HashiCorp for standardizing delivery across platforms.
Local Cloudflare Workers simulator for testing serverless apps and edge workflows before deployment.
Instagram data downloader CLI for posts, stories, metadata, and account exports from the terminal.
Modern HTTP load testing CLI for benchmarking endpoints with concurrency and latency metrics.
Backup and restore Kubernetes clusters, volumes, and resources from the terminal.
CLI for querying and administering etcd key-value stores used by Kubernetes and distributed systems.
High-performance HTTP benchmarking tool for load testing web services from the terminal.
Python project and environment manager focused on modern tooling, packaging, and reproducible workflows.
Alertmanager CLI for silences, alerts, and operational workflows around incident response.
Static analysis scanner CLI for SonarQube and SonarCloud code quality pipelines.
Multipurpose relay CLI for sockets, tunnels, port forwarding, and low-level network plumbing.
CLI for managing Segment workspace configuration and analytics infrastructure workflows from the terminal.
CLI for managing Tinybird data sources, pipes, deployments, and local development workflows.
NCurses disk usage browser for navigating storage consumption interactively from the terminal.
Payload CMS CLI for scaffolding projects, managing local environments, and developer workflows around content systems.
Versioning and release management tooling for monorepos and package ecosystems from the command line.
Fast CSV toolkit for filtering, indexing, slicing, and analyzing tabular data from the command line.
Container Runtime Interface CLI for inspecting containers, images, and pods on Kubernetes nodes.
Automated release CLI for versioning, tagging, changelog generation, and publishing workflows.
Infrastructure automation and configuration management CLI for defining and applying server state as code.
Fast disk usage analyzer for finding large directories and storage hotspots in terminal workflows.
LS_COLORS theme generator for shells and file listings, useful for terminal customization and readable output.
Tracing and distributed systems tooling around Jaeger for querying, debugging, and observability workflows.
Encrypt files transparently in Git repositories so secrets can live in version control safely.
Configuration management CLI for modeling desired system state and applying infrastructure changes reliably.
Like jq for HTML: query and transform HTML documents with CSS selectors in shell workflows.
HTTP benchmarking tool for stress testing APIs and services with simple command-line workflows.
Pure Go implementation of jq for JSON querying, filtering, and transformations in portable scripts.
Fauna database shell for querying, managing schema, and interacting with Fauna from the terminal.
Time-series database CLI surface for ingest, querying, and local operations around QuestDB deployments.
HTML parsing CLI that lets you query markup with CSS selectors from shell pipelines.
Distributed tracing backend with CLI-oriented operations for trace storage, troubleshooting, and observability workflows.
Manage encrypted secrets inside Git repositories using GPG and simple CLI workflows.
CLI for `.http` and `.rest` files with HTTP, gRPC, WebSocket, and MQTT request workflows.
Interactive JSON viewer with syntax highlighting and structured navigation for large API responses.
Official Exoscale cloud CLI for compute, DNS, storage, and infrastructure management.
Official Jenkins command-line interface for builds, jobs, nodes, and administrative automation against Jenkins servers.
Database scaling and cluster operations tooling for Vitess-managed MySQL environments.
Control Chromecast devices from the terminal for casting media, tabs, and local files to TVs and speakers.
Conventional commit assistant CLI for generating structured commit messages and release-friendly history.
AST-aware diff tool that compares syntax trees instead of raw lines for smarter code review output.
Search tool from bat-extras that combines ripgrep-style lookup with bat-style syntax-highlighted previews.
Pipe Viewer shows progress, throughput, and ETA for data moving through Unix pipelines.
Command-line interface for Forgejo for repository, issue, and pull request workflows in self-hosted Git forges.
Lightweight PostgreSQL connection pooler with operational CLI workflows for inspection and admin tasks.
Terminal UI client for Spotify playback, browsing, and keyboard-driven music control.
Generate changelogs and release notes from conventional commits using terminal automation.
Syntax-aware Git merge driver that resolves conflicts structurally instead of treating source files as plain text.
Count lines of code across languages and repositories for audits, reports, and engineering analysis.
Control Linux media players from the command line through the MPRIS interface for playback automation.
Terminal anime streaming CLI for searching, playing, and tracking shows from community-backed sources.
Interactive jq terminal for exploring JSON data with immediate query feedback and navigation.
Display running coreutils progress bars and file operation status directly in the terminal.
CLI for managing Deta Space apps, projects, and deployments from the terminal.
Twitter and X scraping CLI for collecting profiles, tweets, and social media data without the official API.
Improved colored diff tool for side-by-side file comparisons and clearer terminal review output.
Movie and TV streaming CLI with plugin support for browsing and playing media from the terminal.
Command-line interface for Travis CI builds, logs, and CI workflow operations.
Terminal podcast player and podcast subscription manager for keyboard-driven listening workflows.
Non-interactive SSH password helper for scripting legacy systems that cannot use key-based authentication.
Drupal development CLI for scaffolding modules, running generators, and site maintenance workflows.
Official Google Cloud CLI — manage compute, storage, networking, and 200+ GCP services
Why CLIs?
The interface layer for AI agents
AI agents don't click buttons — they run commands. CLIs are the primitives. Custom skills teach your agent how to use them for your project. Here's why that matters →