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Show HN: Mcp2cli – One CLI for every API, 96-99% fewer tokens than native MCP

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Re: Show HN: Mcp2cli – One CLI for every API, 96-99% fewer tokens than native MCP

#61

Post by edgyquant »

Charon77 wrote: post #34
Doublon wrote: post #15

We had `curl`, HTTP and OpenAPI specs, but we created MCP. Now we're wrapping MCP into CLIs...

MCP only exists because there's no easy way for AI to run commands on servers. Oh wait there's ssh. I guess it's because there's no way to tell AI agents what the tool does, or when to invoke it... Except that AI pretty much knows the syntax of all of the standard tools, even sed, jq, etc... Yeah, ssh should've been the norm, but someone is getting promoted for inventing MCP

No it’s more like - because AI can’t know every endpoint and what it does, so MCP allows for injecting the endpoints and a description into context so the ai can choose the right tool without additions steps

Re: Show HN: Mcp2cli – One CLI for every API, 96-99% fewer tokens than native MCP

#62

Post by edgyquant »

acchow wrote: post #39

> Every MCP server injects its full tool schemas into context on every turn I consider this a bug. I'm sure the chat clients will fix this soon enough. Something like: on each turn, a subagent searches available MCP tools for anything relevant. Usually, nothing helpful will be found and the regular chat continues without any MCP context added.

That’s a trade off, now you need multiple model calls for every single request

Re: Show HN: Mcp2cli – One CLI for every API, 96-99% fewer tokens than native MCP

#63

Post by edgyquant »

ekianjo wrote: post #48
acchow wrote: post #39

> Every MCP server injects its full tool schemas into context on every turn I consider this a bug. I'm sure the chat clients will fix this soon enough. Something like: on each turn, a subagent searches available MCP tools for anything relevant. Usually, nothing helpful will be found and the regular chat continues without any MCP context added.

Yes we just RAG to be applied on tools. Very simple to implement.

I don’t think so. Without a list of tools in context the ai can’t even know what options it has, so a RAG like search doesn’t feel like it would be anywhere near as accurate

Re: Show HN: Mcp2cli – One CLI for every API, 96-99% fewer tokens than native MCP

#65

Post by CharlieDigital »

edgyquant wrote: post #60
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MCP is a dead end, just ignore it and it will go away.

It’s not, they are a big unlock when using something like cursor or copilot. I think people who say this don’t quite know what MCP is, it’s just a thin wrapper around an API that describes its endpoints as tools. How is there not a ton of value in this?

MCP is the future in enterprise and teams.

It's as you said: people misunderstand MCP and what it delivers.

If you only use it as an API? Useless. If you use it on a small solo project? Useless.

But if you want to share skills across a fleet of repos? Deliver standard prompts to baseline developer output and productivity? Without having to sync them? And have it updated live? MCP prompts.

If you want to share canonical docs like standard guidance on security and performance? Always up to date and available in every project from the start? No need to sync and update? MCP resources.

If you want standard telemetry and observability of usage? MCP because now you can emit and capture OTEL from the server side.

If you want to wire execution into sandboxed environments? MCP.

MCP makes sense for org-level agent engineering but doesn't make sense for the solo vibe coder working on an isolated codebase locally with no need to sandbox execution.

People are using MCP for the wrong use cases and then declaring them excess when the real use case is standardizing remote delivery and of skills and resources. Tool execution is secondary.

Re: Show HN: Mcp2cli – One CLI for every API, 96-99% fewer tokens than native MCP

#66

Post by siva7 »

jancurn wrote: post #28

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/stei…

Which one do you recommend?

Re: Show HN: Mcp2cli – One CLI for every API, 96-99% fewer tokens than native MCP

#67

Post by jebus989 »

siva7 wrote: post #66
jancurn wrote: post #28

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/stei…

Which one do you recommend?

Roll your own

Re: Show HN: Mcp2cli – One CLI for every API, 96-99% fewer tokens than native MCP

#69

Post by ekianjo »

edgyquant wrote: post #63
ekianjo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes we just RAG to be applied on tools. Very simple to implement.

I don’t think so. Without a list of tools in context the ai can’t even know what options it has, so a RAG like search doesn’t feel like it would be anywhere near as accurate

The RAG helps select the tool needed for the task at hand. Semantic search returns only the tools that match. Very efficient.

Re: Show HN: Mcp2cli – One CLI for every API, 96-99% fewer tokens than native MCP

#70

Post by Terretta »

acchow wrote: post #39

> Every MCP server injects its full tool schemas into context on every turn I consider this a bug. I'm sure the chat clients will fix this soon enough. Something like: on each turn, a subagent searches available MCP tools for anything relevant. Usually, nothing helpful will be found and the regular chat continues without any MCP context added.

> > Every MCP server injects its full tool schemas into context on every turn

> I consider this a bug. I'm sure the chat clients will fix this soon enough.

ANTHROP\C's Claudes manage/minimize/mitigate this reaonably.

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