Airbyte on designing CLIs for agents, not humans: when to pick MCP vs a CLI
AI Engineer · youtube · 2026-10-10
Airbyte engineer Pedro Lopez shared lessons from building two thin interfaces (MCP server + CLI) over one platform so AI agents can reach company data. For MCP: keep tool counts small with progressive discovery, use OAuth, expect long-lived sessions, and know URL elicitation isn't client-ready. For agent-first CLIs: JSON in/out, consistent noun-verb commands, ship skills with the tool, no interactive prompts. He closes with criteria for choosing MCP vs CLI.
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