CLI-Anything

CLI-Anything is an open-source project from HKUDS that transforms any software with a codebase into an agent-native tool by automatically generating structured CLI harnesses. Released in March 2026 and licensed under Apache 2.0, it has rapidly grown to over 36,000 GitHub stars and 3,500 forks. The project ships a plugin for Claude Code, Pi, OpenCode, Codex, and other AI coding agents, and pairs with CLI-Hub — a community registry at clianything.cc — where users can browse, install, and manage over 80 community-built CLIs.

What It Is

CLI-Anything sits in the agent harness category: it bridges the gap between AI agents (which excel at reasoning) and real professional software (which was designed for human GUI interaction). Rather than relying on fragile UI automation or limited APIs, CLI-Anything generates a full Python Click CLI that calls the actual application backend — Blender renders via blender --background, LibreOffice exports via headless mode, GIMP processes via Script-Fu. The result is a structured, JSON-capable command-line interface that any AI agent can discover and operate using standard --help flags and which commands.

The 7-Phase Automated Pipeline

The core workflow is a fully automated 7-phase pipeline triggered by a single slash command (e.g., /cli-anything ./gimp):

• Phase 1 – Analyze: Scans source code, maps GUI actions to APIs
• Phase 2 – Design: Architects command groups, state model, output formats
• Phase 3 – Implement: Builds Click CLI with REPL, JSON output, undo/redo
• Phase 4 – Plan Tests: Creates TEST.md with unit and E2E test plans
• Phase 5 – Write Tests: Implements comprehensive test suite
• Phase 6 – Document: Updates TEST.md with results
• Phase 7 – Publish: Creates setup.py, installs to PATH

A /cli-anything:refine command performs gap analysis and incrementally expands coverage without destructive changes. The methodology is codified in HARNESS.md, a single source-of-truth SOP that encodes lessons from building all production harnesses.

CLI-Hub and the Community Registry

CLI-Hub (pip install cli-anything-hub) is the package manager and web registry for the ecosystem. As of mid-2026, the hub lists over 80 CLIs across 39 categories — spanning 3D modeling (Blender, FreeCAD), image editing (GIMP, Inkscape, Krita), video (Kdenlive, Shotcut, VideoCaptioner), audio (Audacity, MuseScore), game development (Godot, s&box), scientific computing (QGIS, Uni-Mol Tools), and web APIs (Mailchimp, Zoom, n8n, Exa). Each CLI ships a canonical SKILL.md file that makes it discoverable by SKILL-compatible agents via npx skills add HKUDS/CLI-Anything --skill <name>. A meta-skill lets agents autonomously browse the catalog and install whichever CLI fits the task.

Architecture and Design Principles

Every generated CLI follows five core design principles enforced by HARNESS.md:

• Authentic software integration: The CLI generates valid project files (ODF, MLT XML, SVG) and delegates rendering to the real application — no toy reimplementations.
• Dual interaction modes: Stateful REPL for interactive agent sessions plus subcommand interface for scripting pipelines.
• Consistent UX: All CLIs share a unified REPL interface (repl_skin.py) with branded banners, command history, and progress indicators.
• Agent-native design: Built-in --json flag on every command delivers structured data; --help provides automatic documentation agents can discover.
• Zero-compromise dependencies: Real software is a hard requirement — tests fail (not skip) when backends are missing.

Test Coverage and Production Readiness

The project reports 2,280 passing tests across 27+ harnesses, covering unit tests with synthetic data, end-to-end tests with real files and software invocation, and CLI subprocess verification. The test suite achieves a 100% pass rate across all harnesses. Notable harness sizes include Blender (208 tests), Inkscape (202 tests), s&box (244 tests), and Mailchimp (303 commands). The project notes that reliable harness generation requires frontier-class models such as Claude Sonnet or GPT-5 class; smaller models may produce incomplete CLIs.

Update: v0.3.0 and CLI-Hub v0.2.0

The latest GitHub release is v0.3.0, published April 24, 2026. CLI-Hub reached v0.2.0 on April 15, 2026, adding support for public CLIs from multiple install sources (pip, npm, brew, bundled/system tools) backed by a new public_registry.json. The April 18, 2026 update unified all SKILL.md files under a top-level skills/ directory, enabling direct monorepo consumption via npx skills add HKUDS/CLI-Anything. The project has been receiving daily updates since its March 2026 launch, with new harnesses and infrastructure improvements landing continuously.