{"slug": "mcp2cli", "name": "mcp2cli", "category": "terminal", "category_name": "Terminal and shell", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 5, "warners": 0, "score": 2.934, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2026-03-09", "latest": "2026-03-20", "why": "Something more general like this clearly has more utility.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 0, "compare": 2, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Something more general like this clearly has more utility.", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/knowsuchagency/mcp2cli", "official_url": "https://github.com/knowsuchagency/mcp2cli", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["mcp2cli"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 758410816, "item_id": 47400676, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47400676", "by": "bkummel", "date": "2026-03-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "There's already an open source tool that does exactly the same thing", "excerpt": "There's already an open source tool that does exactly the same thing: https://github.com/knowsuchagency/mcp2cli", "context": "", "use_case": "Exposing MCP servers as CLI", "switched_from": "", "story": "MCP Server Is Eating Your Context Window. There's a Simpler Way"}, {"id": 756919424, "item_id": 47307464, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47307464", "by": "kristopolous", "date": "2026-03-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Cool to see this!", "excerpt": "Cool to see this! I started a similar project in January but but nobody seemed interested in it at the time. Looks like I'll get back on that. https://github.com/day50-dev/infinite-mcp Essentially (1) start with the aggregator mcp repos: https://github.com/day50-dev/infinite-mcp/blob/main/gh-scrape.sh . pull all of them down. (2) get the meta information to understand how fresh, maintained, and popular the projects a", "context": "", "use_case": "CLI for APIs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Mcp2cli \u2013 One CLI for every API, 96-99% fewer tokens than native MCP"}, {"id": 756891568, "item_id": 47305723, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47305723", "by": "nwyin", "date": "2026-03-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Something more general like this clearly has more utility.", "excerpt": "cool! anthropic mentions MCPs eating up context and solutions here: https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/code-execution-with-mcp I built one specifically for Cognition's DeepWiki (https://crates.io/crates/dw2md) -- but it's rather narrow. Something more general like this clearly has more utility.", "context": "", "use_case": "CLI access to any API", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Mcp2cli \u2013 One CLI for every API, 96-99% fewer tokens than native MCP"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["exposing mcp servers as cli", "cli for apis", "cli access to any api"], "compared": [], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47305149", "title": "Show HN: Mcp2cli \u2013 One CLI for every API, 96-99% fewer tokens than native MCP", "mentions": 4}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47400261", "title": "MCP Server Is Eating Your Context Window. There's a Simpler Way", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 3, "compare": 2}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 759380081, "item_id": 47461255, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47461255", "by": "0coCeo", "date": "2026-03-20", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Mcp2cli is a runtime approach \u2014 CLI translation at query time.", "excerpt": "Mcp2cli is a runtime approach \u2014 CLI translation at query time. There's a complementary build-time angle worth knowing about: fixing the schemas directly so they're token-efficient before they're ever served to a client. We graded 201 MCP servers (3,991 tools, 512K tokens total). 97% have quality issues that waste tokens: descriptions that repeat the parameter name verbatim, markdown formatting inside tool description", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Mcp2cli \u2013 One CLI for every API, 96-99% fewer tokens than native MCP"}, {"id": 758410816, "item_id": 47400676, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47400676", "by": "bkummel", "date": "2026-03-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "There's already an open source tool that does exactly the same thing", "excerpt": "There's already an open source tool that does exactly the same thing: https://github.com/knowsuchagency/mcp2cli", "context": "", "use_case": "Exposing MCP servers as CLI", "switched_from": "", "story": "MCP Server Is Eating Your Context Window. There's a Simpler Way"}, {"id": 756919424, "item_id": 47307464, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47307464", "by": "kristopolous", "date": "2026-03-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Cool to see this!", "excerpt": "Cool to see this! I started a similar project in January but but nobody seemed interested in it at the time. Looks like I'll get back on that. https://github.com/day50-dev/infinite-mcp Essentially (1) start with the aggregator mcp repos: https://github.com/day50-dev/infinite-mcp/blob/main/gh-scrape.sh . pull all of them down. (2) get the meta information to understand how fresh, maintained, and popular the projects a", "context": "", "use_case": "CLI for APIs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Mcp2cli \u2013 One CLI for every API, 96-99% fewer tokens than native MCP"}, {"id": 756897393, "item_id": 47306087, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47306087", "by": "benvan", "date": "2026-03-09", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Nice project! I've been working on something very similar", "excerpt": "Nice project! I've been working on something very similar here https://github.com/max-hq/max It works by schematising the upstream and making data locally synchronised + a common query language, so the longer term goals are more about avoiding API limits / escaping the confines of the MCP query feature set - i.e. token savings on reading data itself (in many cases, savings can be upwards of thousands of times fewer t", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Mcp2cli \u2013 One CLI for every API, 96-99% fewer tokens than native MCP"}, {"id": 756891568, "item_id": 47305723, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47305723", "by": "nwyin", "date": "2026-03-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Something more general like this clearly has more utility.", "excerpt": "cool! anthropic mentions MCPs eating up context and solutions here: https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/code-execution-with-mcp I built one specifically for Cognition's DeepWiki (https://crates.io/crates/dw2md) -- but it's rather narrow. Something more general like this clearly has more utility.", "context": "", "use_case": "CLI access to any API", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Mcp2cli \u2013 One CLI for every API, 96-99% fewer tokens than native MCP"}]}