MCP vs CLI for AI Agents: A Comparative Analysis of Tool Integration Strategies for Autonomous Systems
arXiv:2610.30157v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: AI agents require interfaces to interact with external systems such as files, APIs, databases, and cloud services. Two competing paradigms have emerged: CLI (Command Line Interface), where agents execute shell commands directly, and MCP (Model Context Protocol), a structured JSON-RPC protocol providing governed, typed tool access. This paper presents a comparative analysis across 14 evaluation dimensions, supported by worked examples, security assessment against established compliance frameworks, and economic modeling. Our analysis indicates that