"Six months ago, everyone was talking about MCPs. And I was like, screw MCPs. Every MCP would be better as a CLI."

— Peter Steinberger, Founder of OpenClaw Watch on YouTube (~2:39:00) | Lex Fridman Podcast #491

ExchangeRate CLI

⚠️ Unofficial CLI - Not officially sponsored or affiliated with ExchangeRate-API.

A production-ready command-line interface for ExchangeRate-API — real-time and historical currency exchange rates for 161+ currencies. Convert currencies, check rates, and query historical data directly from your terminal.

Features

• Real-time Rates — Latest exchange rates for any base currency
• Currency Conversion — Convert amounts between any pair of currencies
• Historical Rates — Query rates for any past date
• Currency Pairs — Get direct rate for any two currencies
• 161+ Currencies — Full list of supported currency codes
• Quota Tracking — Monitor your API usage
• JSON output — All commands support --json for scripting
• Colorized output — Clean terminal output with chalk

Installation

npm install -g @ktmcp-cli/exchangerate

Quick Start

# Get a free API key at https://www.exchangerate-api.com/
exchangerate config set --api-key YOUR_API_KEY

# Convert 100 USD to EUR
exchangerate convert USD EUR 100

# Get latest rates (base: USD)
exchangerate rates latest

# Get rates for GBP base
exchangerate rates latest GBP

Commands

Config

exchangerate config set --api-key <key>
exchangerate config show

Convert

exchangerate convert USD EUR 100
exchangerate convert GBP JPY 500 --json

Rates

exchangerate rates latest           # USD base, common currencies
exchangerate rates latest EUR       # EUR base
exchangerate rates latest USD --currencies EUR,GBP,JPY,CAD
exchangerate rates latest USD --json  # All rates as JSON

exchangerate rates historical USD 2024 1 15
exchangerate rates historical EUR 2023 12 31 --currencies GBP,JPY

Pair

exchangerate pair USD EUR
exchangerate pair GBP JPY --json

Currencies

exchangerate currencies              # All supported currencies
exchangerate currencies --search EUR
exchangerate currencies --search "dollar"

Quota

exchangerate quota

JSON Output

All commands support --json for structured output:

exchangerate rates latest --json | jq '.conversion_rates.EUR'
exchangerate convert USD EUR 1000 --json | jq '.conversion_result'
exchangerate currencies --json | jq '.supported_codes[] | select(.[0] | startswith("E"))'

Why CLI > MCP?

No server to run. No protocol overhead. Just install and go.

• Simpler — Just a binary you call directly
• Composable — Pipe to jq, grep, awk
• Scriptable — Works in cron jobs, CI/CD, shell scripts

License

MIT — Part of the Kill The MCP project.