Is MCP Dead? No - 10 MCP Servers Solve Problems CLI Cannot
Is MCP Dead? No - 10 MCP Servers Solve Problems CLI Cannot
Every few weeks someone declares MCP dead. "Just use CLI tools." "It is overengineered." "Nobody needs it." Meanwhile, people running 10 MCP servers daily know they solve a fundamentally different problem than command-line tools.
What CLI Cannot Do
Try getting the macOS accessibility tree without MCP. You need an MCP server that connects to the Accessibility API, traverses the UI hierarchy, and returns structured data about every element on screen - buttons, text fields, labels, their positions, their states.
There is no curl command for that. No jq filter that gives you the contents of a Figma canvas. No shell script that reads the state of a running Electron app's internal components.
MCP servers bridge the gap between what an LLM can orchestrate and what the operating system exposes. They are the connective tissue between AI agents and native platform capabilities.
The 10 Server Setup
A practical daily setup might include:
- macOS Accessibility - reading and interacting with any app's UI
- Playwright - browser automation with full DOM access
- File System - structured file operations with permissions
- Git - repository operations beyond what the CLI exposes
- Database - direct query access without connection string juggling
- Calendar/Email - Google Workspace integration
- Memory/Knowledge - persistent agent memory across sessions
Each server exposes capabilities that do not have a clean CLI equivalent. The accessibility tree alone justifies the MCP architecture - there is simply no other way to give an LLM structured access to what is on your screen.
The Real Criticism
The valid criticism of MCP is not that it is unnecessary - it is that the ecosystem has too many low-quality servers that wrap simple API calls that could be a curl command. An MCP server that wraps a REST API is pointless. An MCP server that gives you access to the macOS accessibility tree is essential.
MCP's Future
MCP's value increases as agents move from chat to action. The more an agent needs to interact with native apps, hardware, and OS-level features, the more it needs MCP servers as its interface layer. CLI tools are great for text-in, text-out operations. MCP servers handle everything else.
Fazm is an open source macOS AI agent. Open source on GitHub.