I feel the CLI vs MCP debate is an apples to oranges framing. When you're using claude you can watch it using CLI's, running brew, mise, lots of jq but what about when you've built an agent that needs to work through a complicated API? You don't want to make 5 CRUD calls to get the right answer. A curated MCP tool ensures it can determinism where it matters most.. when interacting with customer data
Even in the case where you need to group steps together in a deterministic manner, you don't need an MCP server for that. You just need to bundle those steps into a CLI or API endpoint.
That was my point. Going the extra step and wrapping it in an MCP provides minimal advantage vs. just writing a SKILL.md for a CLI or API endpoint.
