[theknarf]

We should just build more CLI tools, that way the agentic AI can just run `yourtool --help` to learn how to use it. Instead of needing an MCP-server to access ex. Jira it should just call a cli tool `jira`. Better CLI tools for everything would help both AI and humans alike.

[tomashubelbauer]

This would be awesome, but great CLIs would have already been valuable prior to the age of LLMs and yet most services didn't ship one. I think it is because services like Jira and others do not want to be too open. Ultimately, despite the current LLM/MCP craze, I think this won't change and MCP tools will start getting locked down and nerfed somehow, the same way APIs have in not so recent memory after there being a bit of a craze around those a decade+ back.

[xnorswap]

I agree with your conclusion that this stuff will get locked down again over time.

I think there's also another major reason people don't like to ship desktop software, and that's the cost of support of dealing with outdated tools, it can be immense.

Ticket as raised, "Why is my <Product> broken?"

After several rounds of clarification, it's established they're using a 6-year old version that's hitting API endpoints that were first deprecated 3 years ago and finally now removed...

It's incredibly expensive to support multiple versions of products. On-prem / self host means you have to support several, but at least with web products it's expected they'll phone-home and nag to be updated and that there'll be someone qualified to do that update.

When you add runnable executable tooling, it magnifies the issue of how old that tooling gets.

Even with a support policy of not supporting versions older than <X>, you'll waste a lot of customer support time dealing with issues only for it to emerge it's out-dated software.

[linsomniac]

I've had good luck with having Claude write little CLI tools that interact with Jira: "cases" prints out a list of my in-progress cases (including immediately printing a cached list of cases, then querying Jira and showing any stragglers), "other_changes" shows me tickets in this release that are marked with "Other changes" label, "new_release" creates a new release in Jira, our deployment database, and a script to run the release, etc...

I could imagine a subagent that builds a tool on demand when it's needed.

Claude is really good at building small tools like these.

[PanMan]

Jira actually has both an MCP server and a CLI tool (called "acli"). I switched our claude code to the CLI (with a skill) from the MCP as it seems.. more efficient/quicker.

[ath92]

Nobody shipped this because previously almost nobody could use CLI tools. Now you can just ask an llm to generate the commands which makes things much more accessible

[throwaway19268]

CLI tools for online services like Jira etc. basically amount to an open and documented API which the attitude towards these probably unlikely to be changing anytime soon as you mention.

[joshribakoff]

The good news is that an llm will be really helpful in scraping your content locating alternative service providers or even creating your own solution so you can migrate away

[delaminator]

That's only useful if the agent is running in your terminal. The example given about updating a cell in Excel, I mean, I suppose that is a sort of tool you could used for something. SharePoint has an API for updating excels on SharePoint. But to update a single cell is actually quite time consuming for the API round trip - multiple seconds. I recently had to rewrite something because it was doing individual API calls to update cells.

[easyascake]

I use the GitLab CLI (glab) extensively, because it is so much better than the (official) GitLab MCP. I just run `glab auth login` before launching Claude Code, then tell CC to use `glab` to communicate with the GitLab API.

When using the MCP, I have to do a whole OAuth browser-launch process and even then I am only limited to the 9-10 tools that they've shipped it with so far.

[PantaloonFlames]

See also “95% of MCP Servers are useless”. https://youtu.be/7baGJ1bC9zE?si=ShyLg2mHWwbBW1DS

tl;dr AI-powered assistants can already use command line tools.

[chillfox]

That's pretty much how I have been using coding agents. I get them to build small cli tools with a --help option and place them in a `./tools` directory. Then I can tell an agent to use the tools to accomplish whatever task I need done.

Usually when I mention a `tool --help` for the first time in a prompt I will put it in backticks with the --help argument.

It works really well.

[misiti3780]

im going to try this. it sounds promising. can you provide an example for more context?

[tacone]

And cli tools can be composed with scripts, which makes the whole experience faster and reproducible.

[jackbravo]

And actually I like it that new cli tools are emerging because of this. For example hono cli: https://blog.yusu.ke/hono-cli/

[3acctforcom]

JIRA is a great example. I used to have automation when it was hosted on prem and I had database access.

Now it's locked into the cloud with piss poor APIs so they can sell you more add-ons. I'm actively looking at alternatives.

[makestuff]

Yeah, I have a feeling we will instead start exposing some /help api that the AI will first call to see all possible operations and how to use them in some sort of minified documentation format.

[zby]

I think this is about tools that are executed on the server instead of on the client. This is all very confusing - so I might be mistaken.

[stpedgwdgfhgdd]

All for CLI tools, but they have their limits. Another party can update their mcp server and you get the new tools without a sweat.

E.g. with a Jira cli tool I have to write the skill and keep it up to date. With a MCP server I can delegate most of the work.

[mlrtime]

This is exactly what I do when given an PAT + api documentation, write my own tool. Sure it'd be better if atlassian did it, but I'm not holding my breath.

[PantaloonFlames]

Or, why not let the LLM write the tool and give it to the agent? Taking it one step further the tool could be completely ephemeral - it could have a lifetime of exactly one chat conversation.

[MrDarcy]

Stop spamming.