MCP-CLI

Access MCP servers through the command line. MCP enables interaction with external systems like GitHub, filesystems, databases, and APIs.

Commands Command Output mcp-cli List all servers and tool names mcp-cli Show tools with parameters mcp-cli / Get tool JSON schema mcp-cli / '' Call tool with arguments mcp-cli grep "" Search tools by name

Add -d to include descriptions (e.g., mcp-cli filesystem -d)

Workflow Discover: mcp-cli → see available servers and tools Explore: mcp-cli → see tools with parameters Inspect: mcp-cli / → get full JSON input schema Execute: mcp-cli / '' → run with arguments Examples

List all servers and tool names

mcp-cli

See all tools with parameters

mcp-cli filesystem

With descriptions (more verbose)

mcp-cli filesystem -d

Get JSON schema for specific tool

mcp-cli filesystem/read_file

Call the tool

mcp-cli filesystem/read_file '{"path": "./README.md"}'

Search for tools

mcp-cli grep "file"

JSON output for parsing

mcp-cli filesystem/read_file '{"path": "./README.md"}' --json

Complex JSON with quotes (use heredoc or stdin)

mcp-cli server/tool <<EOF {"content": "Text with 'quotes' inside"} EOF

Or pipe from a file/command

cat args.json | mcp-cli server/tool

Find all TypeScript files and read the first one

mcp-cli filesystem/search_files '{"path": "src/", "pattern": "*.ts"}' --json | jq -r '.content[0].text' | head -1 | xargs -I {} sh -c 'mcp-cli filesystem/read_file "{\"path\": \"{}\"}"'

Options Flag Purpose -j, --json JSON output for scripting -r, --raw Raw text content -d Include descriptions Exit Codes 0: Success 1: Client error (bad args, missing config) 2: Server error (tool failed) 3: Network error