npx cli2mcp <command>

npm install -g cli2mcp
# or invoke without installing
npx cli2mcp <command>

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ripgrep": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "cli2mcp", "rg", "--name", "ripgrep"]
    },
    "jq": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "cli2mcp", "jq"]
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ripgrep": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "cli2mcp", "rg", "--name", "ripgrep",
               "--description", "Recursively search files with regex"]
    },
    "jq": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "cli2mcp", "jq",
               "--description", "Query and transform JSON via stdin"]
    },
    "pandoc": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "cli2mcp", "pandoc",
               "--description", "Convert documents between markup formats"]
    },
    "sqlite3": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "cli2mcp", "sqlite3",
               "--description", "Run SQL against a SQLite database file",
               "--cwd", "/path/to/safe/dir"]
    },
    "yt-dlp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "cli2mcp", "yt-dlp",
               "--description", "Download media from URLs",
               "--cwd", "/path/to/downloads",
               "--timeout", "300000"]
    }
  }
}

cli2mcp <command> [options]

  --name <name>         Tool name shown to the AI           (default: <command>)
  --description <text>  Tool description shown to the AI    (default: first --help line)
  --timeout <ms>        Subprocess timeout per call         (default: 60000)
  --cwd <path>          Working directory for subprocess    (default: process.cwd())
  --env <KEY=VALUE>     Extra environment variables         (repeatable)
  --stderr <mode>       stderr handling:
                          include  →  appended to tool output (default)
                          drop     →  discarded
                          error    →  any stderr → isError: true
  -h, --help            Show help

{ "args": [".name"], "stdin": "{\"name\": \"cli2mcp\"}" }

cli2mcp rg
   │
   ├─ 1. spawn: rg --help          →  capture stdout + stderr
   ├─ 2. parse help text           →  CliShape { flags, positionals, description }
   ├─ 3. synthesize JSON Schema    →  inputSchema
   ├─ 4. register one MCP tool     →  name: "rg", schema: <above>
   └─ 5. start stdio MCP server    →  await client connection

On tools/call:
   { args, flags, stdin? }  →  argv builder  →  execa(rg, argv, { stdin })
                                                           │
                                          stdout (+ stderr) → content[text]

pnpm install
pnpm test         # vitest
pnpm typecheck    # tsc --noEmit
pnpm lint         # biome check