One CLI Beats One MCP Tool per API: an Agent Tooling Workflow and a 7-Day OAuth Trap
tariqosmani · reddit · 2026-10-19
The author explains why he prefers a single CLI over one MCP tool per API for his agents: dozens of Google Workspace APIs would mean dozens of tool definitions weighing on the agent's context.
He uses Google's open-source gws CLI (googleworkspace/cli), which builds its command tree at runtime from Google's discovery docs. The workflow: the agent looks up a method's schema, previews requests with --dry-run, and uses field masks to keep responses small.
Key gotcha: if your OAuth app is in Testing mode, refresh tokens expire every 7 days, so scheduled agents silently stop authenticating after a week.
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