Mcp2cli
One CLI for every API, 96-99% fewer tokens than native MCP
Details
- External ID
- 47305149
- Source
- HN
- Company
- —
- Product
- Mcp2cli
- Website domain
- github.com
- Launched
- March 9, 2026
- Cohort
- —
- Upvotes
- 146
- Upvotes percentile
- 0.939729397293973
- Tags
- —
- Fetched at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:26 p.m.
- Updated at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:26 p.m.
Description
Every MCP server injects its full tool schemas into context on every turn — 30 tools costs ~3,600 tokens/turn whether the model uses them or not. Over 25 turns with 120 tools, that's 362,000 tokens just for schemas.mcp2cli turns any MCP server or OpenAPI spec into a CLI at runtime. The LLM discovers tools on demand: mcp2cli --mcp https://mcp.example.com/sse --list # ~16 tokens/tool mcp2cli --mcp https://mcp.example.com/sse create-task --help # ~120 tokens, once mcp2cli --mcp https://mcp.example.com/sse create-task --title "Fix bug" No codegen, no rebuild when the server changes. Works with any LLM — it's just a CLI the model shells out to. Also handles OpenAPI specs (JSON/YAML, local or remote) with the same interface.Token savings are real, measured with cl100k_base: 96% for 30 tools over 15 turns, 99% for 120 tools over 25 turns.It also ships as an installable skill for AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex): `npx skills add knowsuchagency/mcp2cli --skill mcp2cli`Inspired by Kagan Yilmaz's CLI vs MCP analysis and CLIHub.https://github.com/knowsuchagency/mcp2cli
Enrichment
- Theme
- Vertical
- Horizontal
- Function
- Dev tools
- Audience
- Developer
- AI stance
- AI feature
- Project type
- Commercial product
- Normalized one-liner
- unified cli for multiple apis with fewer tokens
- Manually corrected
- False
Could you build this?
Yes Converting MCP or OpenAPI JSON schemas into CLI subcommands and generating dynamic documentation or CLI wrapper scripts is a clean data transformation task ideal for vibe coding.
Discussion
20 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers, OpenAPI spec extensions, Skills-based approaches, Direct REST API integration
Concerns raised: Token reduction incomplete without showing tool call accuracy holds up, Cache invalidation story unclear when tool schema changes between discovery and invocation, Misleading 'per turn' context claims without showing context removal, Pagination handling for large API responses unclear, Why make this a product rather than just doing it internally
Feature requests: Support for skills encapsulation, Handle platform-specific CLI differences (macOS vs Linux), OpenAPI support with dynamic CLI generation without recompilation, Agent skill functionality
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one — 130 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #8 of 131 (itself plus its competitors, highest first — normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 110 days after the earliest competitor.
- CLI-use · hn · 2026-04-21 · 7 upvotes · similarity 0.62
- Awsmux · hn · 2026-07-25 · 10 upvotes · similarity 0.52
- MCPlexor · hn · 2026-02-09 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.50
- Clify · hn · 2026-04-07 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.48
- Model Tools Protocol (MTP) · hn · 2026-02-10 · 9 upvotes · similarity 0.46
- I built a tool that turns any API into a CLI for agents · hn · 2026-03-01 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.45
- Cost.dev (YC W21) · hn · 2026-06-04 · 48 upvotes · similarity 0.45
- Turn APIs into MCP servers without code · hn · 2025-12-04 · 15 upvotes · similarity 0.43
Other launches for this product
- No other launches for this product.
Same idea, different domain
Nobody's really built a dev tools tool for Sales yet.