CliHub — The App Store for AI Agents

~/projects/my-app

# Agent discovers tools by searching the store

$ clihub search "resize images batch"

3 tools found · sorted by relevance

● image-resize Resize, crop & convert images ★ 4.8 12k installs

● sharp-cli High-perf image processing ★ 4.6 8.2k installs

● imgp Fast batch image resizer ★ 4.5 5.1k installs

# Install in one command, agent-ready immediately

$ clihub install image-resize

✓ Installed image-resize@2.1.0 via pip

ℹ Permissions: local-write, network-read

# The protocol is --help. That's it.

$ image-resize --help

The Thesis

Why `--help` beats JSON schemas

MCP promised to be the universal connector. In practice, it eats your agent's context alive. CLI tools are the interface LLMs were born to use.

⚡

Token Efficient

MCP dumps full schemas into every prompt. One server with 20 tools adds 8,000–15,000 tokens. CLI tools load nothing until the agent runs --help.

MCP: 72% context wasted CLI: 0% ambient cost

🧠

LLMs Are CLI-Native

Models trained on billions of lines of shell scripts, man pages, and Stack Overflow. They already know git, docker, curl, jq without any schema.

Zero learning cost Training data = docs

🔗

Unix Composability

Pipe stdout to stdin. Chain small tools into powerful workflows. Agents naturally compose commands just like senior engineers write shell scripts.

📖

Self-Documenting

Every CLI ships with --help. Hierarchical discovery: tool --help → resources, tool user --help → actions. No separate schema to maintain.

🔄

Deterministic Feedback

Exit code 0 = success. Exit code >0 = error. Stderr explains what went wrong. The perfect self-healing loop for autonomous agents.

🏗️

Battle-Tested Ecosystem

Thousands of production-grade CLI tools already exist. AWS CLI, GitHub CLI, kubectl, terraform — maintained by the service providers themselves.

For Agents & Humans

Discover. Install. Create. Ship.

Both AI agents and humans are first-class citizens. Use the CLI or the web — same store, same tools.

Search with natural language

Semantic search over 500+ indexed tools. Agents search from the terminal, humans from the web. Same results, same ranking.

# Agent searches from terminal $ clihub search "convert PDF to markdown" # Or with flags for structured output $ clihub search "batch audio processing" --json

Install in one command

Auto-detects package manager (pip, npm, brew, cargo, docker). Permission tiers enforced. Immediately available on PATH.

$ clihub install pdf-to-md ✓ Installed pdf-to-md@1.4.0 via pip ℹ Permissions: local-read, local-write $ pdf-to-md --help Convert PDF files to clean Markdown...

Create tools with AI

Describe what you want in natural language. The agent generates the CLI tool with --help, --json, tests, and a manifest. Like creating Claude Code skills.

$ clihub create "A tool that extracts tables from PDFs and outputs CSV" ⟳ Generating CLI with Click... ⟳ Adding --help documentation... ⟳ Adding --json output flag... ⟳ Running automated tests... ✓ Created pdf-table-extract in ./pdf-table-extract/

Publish to the store

One command to publish. Auto-validated (--help works, examples run, exit codes correct). Community ratings and verified badges.

$ clihub publish ./pdf-table-extract ⟳ Validating tool.yaml manifest... ⟳ Testing --help output... ✓ ⟳ Running example commands... ✓ ⟳ Security scan... ✓ ✓ Published pdf-table-extract@1.0.0 → https://clihub.dev/tools/pdf-table-extract

The Protocol

Simple manifest. Self-documenting CLI.
That's the whole protocol.

No JSON-RPC. No schema injection. No server to maintain. Just a YAML manifest and a CLI that speaks --help.

● tool.yaml — Manifest

name: "image-resize" version: "2.1.0" description: "Resize, crop & convert images" author: "@ziyang" license: "MIT" categories: [image, media, conversion] install: method: "pip" package: "image-resize-cli" permissions: [local-read, local-write] agent_hints: when_to_use: "resize or convert images" example: "image-resize in.png -w 800"

● SKILL.md — Agent Context (Optional)

--- name: image-resize description: Batch resize and convert images --- ## Usage Resize images with smart cropping. Supports PNG, JPG, WebP, GIF. ## Commands `image-resize <input> -w <px> -o <out>` `image-resize batch <dir> --max-width 1200` `image-resize --json <input>` # structured output ## Tips Use `--json` for agent consumption. Use `--quiet` for piping to other tools.

Marketplace Preview

500+ tools. Growing daily.

Seeded from the best of awesome-cli-apps, plus AI-generated tools from the community. Every tool tested, rated, and agent-ready.

jq Verified

Lightweight command-line JSON processor. Slice, filter, map, and transform structured data.

★ 4.9 ↓ 89k v1.7.1

json data transform

ffmpeg-cli Verified

Convert, process, and stream audio and video. The Swiss Army knife of multimedia.

★ 4.8 ↓ 67k v6.1

video audio media

ripgrep Verified

Blazingly fast recursive search tool. Respects .gitignore. Replaces grep for codebases.

★ 4.9 ↓ 52k v14.1

search code rust

pandoc Verified

Universal document converter. Markdown, LaTeX, HTML, DOCX, PDF, and 40+ formats.

★ 4.7 ↓ 41k v3.5

documents convert markdown

httpie Verified

Human-friendly HTTP client. Colorized output, JSON support, sessions, and plugins.

★ 4.8 ↓ 38k v3.2

http api testing

pdf-table-extract AI-Created

Extract tables from PDF files and output as CSV, JSON, or Markdown. Smart column detection.

★ 4.3 ↓ 2.1k v1.0.0

pdf tables csv ai-created

The App Storefor AI Agents

Why --help beats JSON schemas