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philschmid
mcp-cli
TypeScript2026–2026
philschmid / mcp-cli

mcp-cli

Lighweight CLI to interact with MCP servers

Command LineAI & Machine LearningSystems & Infrastructure
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
5Distinct people
6Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
1.3KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Lighweight CLI to interact with MCP servers

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 2:04:58 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by week6 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2026-01-09 14:26:11 UTC to 2026-08-05 08:27:11 UTC. Weeks start Monday, UTC.

0122026-01-05 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-12 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 1 submissions, 1 commentsJan 52026-01-12 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-19 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-01-19 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-26 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-01-26 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-02-02 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-02-02 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-02-09 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-02-09 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-02-16 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-02-16 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-02-23 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-02-23 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-03-02 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2026-03-02 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-03-09 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-03-09 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-03-16 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2026-03-16 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-03-23 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-03-23 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-03-30 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-03-30 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-04-06 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-04-06 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-04-13 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2026-04-13 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-04-20 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-04-20 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-04-27 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 commentsApr 202026-04-27 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-05-04 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-05-04 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-05-11 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-05-11 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-05-18 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-05-18 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-05-25 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-05-25 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-06-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-06-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-06-08 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-06-08 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-06-15 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-06-15 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-06-22 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-06-22 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-06-29 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-06-29 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-07-06 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-07-06 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-07-13 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-07-13 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-07-20 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-07-20 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-07-27 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-07-27 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-08-03 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-08-03 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-08-10 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 commentsAug 3

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
Jan 52026-01-05 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-12 00:00:00 UTC211
Jan 122026-01-12 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-19 00:00:00 UTC000
Jan 192026-01-19 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-26 00:00:00 UTC000
Jan 262026-01-26 00:00:00 UTC2026-02-02 00:00:00 UTC000
Feb 22026-02-02 00:00:00 UTC2026-02-09 00:00:00 UTC000
Feb 92026-02-09 00:00:00 UTC2026-02-16 00:00:00 UTC000
Feb 162026-02-16 00:00:00 UTC2026-02-23 00:00:00 UTC000
Feb 232026-02-23 00:00:00 UTC2026-03-02 00:00:00 UTC101
Mar 22026-03-02 00:00:00 UTC2026-03-09 00:00:00 UTC000
Mar 92026-03-09 00:00:00 UTC2026-03-16 00:00:00 UTC101
Mar 162026-03-16 00:00:00 UTC2026-03-23 00:00:00 UTC000
Mar 232026-03-23 00:00:00 UTC2026-03-30 00:00:00 UTC000
Mar 302026-03-30 00:00:00 UTC2026-04-06 00:00:00 UTC000
Apr 62026-04-06 00:00:00 UTC2026-04-13 00:00:00 UTC101
Apr 132026-04-13 00:00:00 UTC2026-04-20 00:00:00 UTC000
Apr 202026-04-20 00:00:00 UTC2026-04-27 00:00:00 UTC000
Apr 272026-04-27 00:00:00 UTC2026-05-04 00:00:00 UTC000
May 42026-05-04 00:00:00 UTC2026-05-11 00:00:00 UTC000
May 112026-05-11 00:00:00 UTC2026-05-18 00:00:00 UTC000
May 182026-05-18 00:00:00 UTC2026-05-25 00:00:00 UTC000
May 252026-05-25 00:00:00 UTC2026-06-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jun 12026-06-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-06-08 00:00:00 UTC000
Jun 82026-06-08 00:00:00 UTC2026-06-15 00:00:00 UTC000
Jun 152026-06-15 00:00:00 UTC2026-06-22 00:00:00 UTC000
Jun 222026-06-22 00:00:00 UTC2026-06-29 00:00:00 UTC000
Jun 292026-06-29 00:00:00 UTC2026-07-06 00:00:00 UTC000
Jul 62026-07-06 00:00:00 UTC2026-07-13 00:00:00 UTC000
Jul 132026-07-13 00:00:00 UTC2026-07-20 00:00:00 UTC000
Jul 202026-07-20 00:00:00 UTC2026-07-27 00:00:00 UTC000
Jul 272026-07-27 00:00:00 UTC2026-08-03 00:00:00 UTC000
Aug 32026-08-03 00:00:00 UTC2026-08-10 00:00:00 UTC101

What Hacker News says

6 sources
nextaccountic·Aug 5, 2026
That's a harness concern, not a protocol concern. For example, maki [0] allows that automatically for all tools > code_execution tool - uses monty to run an interpreter that has all other tools available as async functions. Maki uses it to filter / summarize / transform / pipe data to other tools as input, without it ever reaching and polluting the context window. Sandbox limited by time & memory. Failing that, you can just disable native MCP in your harness and have your agent use a CLI tool that calls MCP, like mcp-cli [1], and then the agent can use regular unix pipes to filter or transform the output. Here, rather than raw grep or sed (which are line oriented), the agent would probably use things like jq. [0] https://github.com/tontinton/maki#context-efficiency [1] https://github.com/philschmid/mcp-cli
In Stateless MCP has recaptured my interest
jauntywundrkind·Apr 10, 2026
I've remained leaning a bit towards MCP until lately. Both have pretty easy ways to call the other (plenty of cli API callers, and tools like mcp-cli for the reverse https://github.com/philschmid/mcp-cli). Skills have really made progressive discovery if cli-tools much better, and MCP design has adapted likewise. I've lightly preferred MCP for formalism, for it feeling more concrete as a thing. But what really changed my mind is seeing how much more casual scripting the LLMs do these days. They'll build rad unix pipes, or some python or node short scripts. With CLI tools, it all composes: every trick it learns can plug directly into every other capability. Where-as with MCP, the LLM has to act as the pipe. Tool calls don't compose! It can read something like this tmux skill then just adapt it in all sorts of crazy ways! It can sort of do
Read the rest
that with tool calls, but much less so. https://github.com/nickgnd/tmux-mcp I'd love to see a capnproto capnweb or some such, with third party handoff (apologies Kenton for once again raising 3ph), where a tool call could return a result and we could forward the result to a different LLM, without even waiting for the result to come back. If the LLM could compose tool calls, it would start to have some parity with the composability of the cli+skill. But it doesn't. And as of very recently I've decided that is too strong a selling point to be ignored. I also just like how the cli remains the universe system: if these are so isomorphic as I keep telling myself, what really does the new kid on the block really bring? How much is a new incarnation better if their capabilities are so near? We should keep building cli tools, good cli tools, so that man and machine benefit. That said I still leave the beads mcp server around. And I turn on the neovim MCP when I want to talk to neovim. Ah well. I should try harder to switch.
In I still prefer MCP over skills
jancurn·Mar 9, 2026
Cool, adding this to my list of MCP CLIs: - https://github.com/apify/mcpc - https://github.com/chrishayuk/mcp-cli - https://github.com/wong2/mcp-cli - https://github.com/f/mcptools - https://github.com/adhikasp/mcp-client-cli - https://github.com/thellimist/clihub - https://github.com/EstebanForge/mcp-cli-ent - https://github.com/knowsuchagency/mcp2cli - https://github.com/philschmid/mcp-cli - https://github.com/steipete/mcporter - https://github.com/mattzcarey/cloudflare-mcp - https://github.com/assimelha/cmcp
In Show HN: Mcp2cli – One CLI for every API, 96-99% fewer tokens than native MCP
jauntywundrkind·Jan 11, 2026
I also ran into https://github.com/philschmid/mcp-cli this morning, which similarly makes a cli out of MCPs. I had been working a little on my own, but here we are! I see this as a very viable path to "code mode", to having ai write code instead of directly invoking tools. Having the AI write down is work allows nice refinement over time, iteration, in a way that it just calling all the tools directly doesnt yield up. https://blog.cloudflare.com/code-mode/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45399204
In Show HN: mcpc – Universal command-line client for Model Context Protocol (MCP)

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