mvanhorn/cli-printing-press

Every API has a secret identity. This finds it, absorbs every feature from every competing tool, then builds the GOAT CLI — designed for AI agents first, with SQLite sync, offline search, and compound insight commands.

What it solves

CLI Printing Press solves the problem of inefficient AI agent interactions with APIs. Instead of agents hunting through documentation or wasting tokens on complex API calls, this tool automatically generates high-performance, token-efficient command-line interfaces (CLIs) and Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers that are optimized specifically for AI agents.

How it works

The system follows a multi-phase pipeline to transform an API or website into a functional toolset:

  1. Research & Absorption: It analyzes official API docs, studies existing community tools (CLIs, MCP servers), and can even "sniff" website traffic via a browser to reverse-engineer APIs that lack official specifications.
  2. The Non-Obvious Insight (NOI): It identifies a "secret identity" for the API—reframing the data to provide deeper insights (e.g., treating Discord as a searchable knowledge base rather than just a chat app).
  3. Generation: It produces a Go-based CLI and a matching MCP server. These share a common internal client and data store, ensuring zero code duplication.
  4. Local-First Data Layer: It implements a local SQLite database with full-text search (FTS5) and incremental sync, allowing agents to perform complex compound queries (like finding "stale" issues) that stateless APIs cannot handle.
  5. Verification: The generated tools are put through mechanical checks, including dogfooding and live API smoke tests, to ensure they are hallucination-free.

Who it’s for

  • AI Agent Developers: Those building with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or Windsurf who want their agents to have reliable, low-token-cost tools.
  • Power Users: People who want local, searchable mirrors of their API data for offline analysis and complex querying.
  • Tool Builders: Anyone needing to quickly generate a professional-grade CLI and MCP server for any web service.

Highlights

  • Dual Interface: Generates both a Cobra CLI (for shell agents) and an MCP server (for IDE agents) from a single specification.
  • Browser-Sniffing: Can create a CLI for any website by capturing traffic, even if no OpenAPI spec exists.
  • Agent-Native Design: Features auto-JSON output, typed exit codes for self-correction, and a --compact flag to reduce token spend by 60-80%.
  • Compound Commands: Uses local SQLite persistence to enable analytics and behavioral insights that are impossible with standard API wrappers.
  • Automated Polish: Includes a "polish" phase to fix dead code and improve READMEs based on actual usage diagnostics.