# cli

Nick Baumann isn't chasing MCP or the next protocol. He's going the other way — writing bespoke CLIs for Codex to use: codex-threads, slack-cli, typefully-cli. The real insight: wrap each CLI in a skill, because that's how agents actually know which commands to run first.

Browser Use releases CLI 2.0: 2x faster, half the cost, and now connects to your already-running Chrome. This is the tool that gives AI agents actual hands.

The core philosophy of Claude Code CLI: think first, act later. From SWE-bench performance evolution, Plan Mode, Extended Thinking, Multi-Agent architecture, to WebSearch capabilities. Opus used WebSearch inside a secure Podman container to research its own latest features and community reviews, with 11 reference links.

Codex CLI is built with Rust, open-sourced under Apache 2.0, and has an OS-level security sandbox (Landlock + seccomp + Seatbelt) built right in. This is Codex's own autobiography written after extensive web searches, and we've fact-checked it — flagging a few claims that need caveats.

Gemini CLI's 1M token big eater context, built-in Web Search grounding, free and open-source. Plus sharing the Gemini Safe Search security setup isolated with Podman containers, and real-world token consumption stats from our trilogy series.

Karpathy argues that CLIs are the most natural interface for AI agents — precisely because they're 'legacy' tech. Text in, text out. He demos Claude building a Polymarket terminal dashboard in 3 minutes via CLI, then drops the mic: every product should ask itself — can agents access and use it? CLI, MCP, markdown docs. It's 2026. Build. For. Agents.

Simon Willison doubles down on his stance: CLI tools beat MCP in almost every scenario for coding agents. Lower token cost, zero extra dependencies, and LLMs natively know how to call --help. Anthropic themselves proposed a 'third way' with code-execution-with-MCP, acknowledging MCP's token waste problem. This article breaks down the full MCP vs CLI trade-off, including a real-world case study from the ShroomDog team.

Obsidian v1.12 ships an official CLI that lets you control your entire vault from the terminal. On the surface it's a power user tool — underneath, it's paving the road for AI agents. This article covers the full CLI command reference and demonstrates real Claude Code + Obsidian CLI workflows.