skill

mcp-cli

Interface for MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers via CLI. Use when you need to interact with external tools, APIs, or data sources through MCP servers, list available MCP servers/tools, or call MCP

github/awesome-copilot/skills/mcp-cliofficiallistedunreviewednot running here yet

Use skill

Set up

Skills are installed by placing their folder where your agent loads skills.

Part of the collection github/awesome-copilot.

npx skills add github/awesome-copilot --skill mcp-cli

Or by hand: Copy the folder skills/mcp-cli from github.com/github/awesome-copilot into ~/.claude/skills/mcp-cli/ (Claude Code) or your agent's skills folder. Check the collection's own README for other agents.

README

synced Oct 14, 2026

Interface for MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers via CLI. Use when you need to interact with external tools, APIs, or data sources through MCP servers, list available MCP servers/tools, or call MCP tools from command line.

MCP-CLI

Access MCP servers through the command line. MCP enables interaction with external systems like GitHub, filesystems, databases, and APIs.

Commands

Command	Output
`mcp-cli`	List all servers and tool names
`mcp-cli <server>`	Show tools with parameters
`mcp-cli <server>/<tool>`	Get tool JSON schema
`mcp-cli <server>/<tool> '<json>'`	Call tool with arguments
`mcp-cli grep "<glob>"`	Search tools by name

Add -d to include descriptions (e.g., mcp-cli filesystem -d)

Workflow

Discover: mcp-cli → see available servers and tools
Explore: mcp-cli <server> → see tools with parameters
Inspect: mcp-cli <server>/<tool> → get full JSON input schema
Execute: mcp-cli <server>/<tool> '<json>' → run with arguments

Examples

# List all servers and tool names
mcp-cli

# See all tools with parameters
mcp-cli filesystem

# With descriptions (more verbose)
mcp-cli filesystem -d

# Get JSON schema for specific tool
mcp-cli filesystem/read_file

# Call the tool
mcp-cli filesystem/read_file '{"path": "./README.md"}'

# Search for tools
mcp-cli grep "*file*"

# JSON output for parsing
mcp-cli filesystem/read_file '{"path": "./README.md"}' --json

# Complex JSON with quotes (use heredoc or stdin)
mcp-cli server/tool <<EOF
{"content": "Text with 'quotes' inside"}
EOF

# Or pipe from a file/command
cat args.json | mcp-cli server/tool

# Find all TypeScript files and read the first one
mcp-cli filesystem/search_files '{"path": "src/", "pattern": "*.ts"}' --json | jq -r '.content[0].text' | head -1 | xargs -I {} sh -c 'mcp-cli filesystem/read_file "{\"path\": \"{}\"}"'

Options

Flag	Purpose
`-j, --json`	JSON output for scripting
`-r, --raw`	Raw text content
`-d`	Include descriptions

Exit Codes

0: Success
1: Client error (bad args, missing config)
2: Server error (tool failed)
3: Network error