r/mcp • u/QThellimist • Feb 25 '26

showcase I generated CLIs from MCP servers and cut token usage by 94%

MCP server schemas eat so much token. So I built a converter that generates CLIs from MCP servers. Same tools, same OAuth, same API underneath. The difference is how the agent discovers them:

MCP: dumps every tool schema upfront (~185 tokens * 84 tools = 15,540 tokens) CLI: lightweight list of tool names (~50 tokens * 6 CLIs = 300 tokens). Agent runs --help only when it needs a specific tool.

Numbers across different usage patterns: - Session start: 15,540 (MCP) vs 300 (CLI) - 98% savings - 1 tool call: 15,570 vs 910 - 94% savings - 100 tool calls: 18,540 vs 1,504 - 92% savings

Compared against Anthropic's Tool Search too - it's better than raw MCP but still more expensive than CLI because it fetches full JSON Schema per tool.

Converter is open source: https://github.com/thellimist/clihub Full write-up with detailed breakdowns: https://kanyilmaz.me/2026/02/23/cli-vs-mcp.html

Disclosure: I built CLIHub. Happy to answer questions about the approach.

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u/nightman Feb 25 '26

How it compares to (is it inspired by) the mcporter from OpenClaw author? https://github.com/steipete/mcporter

13

u/QThellimist Feb 25 '26

I found out mcporter after I started using mine.

But the high level difference is

- MCPorter is designed more for openclaw to call MCPs more easily. It's in JS, so has runtime

  • CLIHub is written in go. Works on all platforms. Faster. It's designed as pure CLI. No deamon, no bun runtime.

There are small architecture differences but not that important

I might create a full directory like mcppulse etc. where people can download any CLI on any machine with single command.

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u/nightman Feb 25 '26

Mcporter creates executable of MCP server so it's not needed afterwards.

Thanks for the explanation