CLI > MCP discussion (mentioned in this week's meeting)

Here's what I was reading, from the link at the bottom:

Why CLI > MCP

Agents are really, really good at calling CLIs (actually much better than calling MCPs), so you don’t have to clutter up your context and you can use all the features that Peekaboo has on demand, no installation required. Just add a note in your project’s CLAUDE.md or agent instructions file that “peekaboo is available for screenshots”, or simply mention peekaboo whenever your current context requires visual debugging.

As Armin Ronacher perfectly articulates in “Code Is All You Need”, CLIs offer composability, reliability, and verifiability that complex tool interfaces can’t match. CLIs work for both humans and AI agents – we can run, debug, and understand them. Once a CLI command works, it can be executed hundreds of times without requiring additional inference or context. This mechanical predictability makes CLIs the universal, composable interface that bridges human and AI interaction.

I’m not saying all MCPs are useless - for example Microsoft’s Playwright MCP for browser automation is great. However, they also built an MCP for GitHub, which is simply a lesser version of the existing gh cli which does the same thing. If this got you thinking, watch Manuel Odendahl’s excellent “MCPs are Boring” talk from AI Engineer.

https://steipete.me/posts/2025/peekaboo-2-freeing-the-cli-from-its-mcp-shackles#why-cli--mcp

I'm not sure where I fall on this yet, but it sounds perfectly reasonable at a glance.

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