alt Hacker NewsThere are certainly things can't be done via CLI, or more suitable for a persistent daemon with various RPC rather than a CLI. But most things are simpler than that, and MCP is overcomplicating it.
MCP does not make things more organized. Everything is a file, and the filesystem is a mature infrastructure that we can trust. I don't see how MCP can be more organized than it.
curl is a great example of what CLI can do. Is there really a better way than curl for AI to browse HN?
Of course we should use Python or other sane scripts rather than shell to process JSON in production, but there is no need to hide the script in an MCP server. Also I don't see how it's easier to sandbox an MCP server than the CLI tools.
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Agreed; the majority of use cases can be solved with either CLI tools or internal “CLI-like” calling conventions.
However, MCP can make sense when connecting to a complex GUI app; especially one that provides visual output. The example here would be Figma.
Maybe I don't understand how other people are using MCP, if it is for code generation agents, that I can't speak of. but for your own agent code, for me at least an MCP server is much easier to use than running commands directly.
> Is there really a better way than curl for AI to browse HN?
Yes, curl can't render the DOM and HN requires captcha when registering. WebMCP is a better way!