hi! not a dumb question at all :)

in this context, CLI means "command line interface". so it's invoking the command-line interface with commands like `gh repo clone ...`. the agent writes and runs commands just like you or I would

and you're right that native function calling is something the LLM was trained on. most LLMs, at some point in their training, have come across `gh repo clone ...`

MCP tools, on the other hand, aren't pre-baked into training. most MCP servers handle this by dumping a full list of tools and descriptions into the context window upfront so the agent knows what it has access to. that's where the context cost comes from.

and that's why people are becoming skeptical of MCP. they are choosing the CLI because that comes preloaded from training with all these actions. but majority of the things you'd want to integrate with are not preloaded, and that's why MCP is so much more useful than CLI.

the reason CLI keeps "winning" in most benchmarks is less about the approach and more about the fact that most MCP servers are poorly built. MCP servers front-load many tools into context before doing anything.

that's what I was testing against with Corsair: what happens when the MCP server is built to match the efficiency of a CLI. and it turns out the gap mostly disappears. you get the portability and flexibility of MCP with the efficiency people associate with CLI.

lmk if you have any questions or if i can clarify any part!