Agents cannot draw in SolidWorks. Cannot design PCBs. Cannot run CFD simulations. Cannot send Outlook emails. Cannot access most websites.

Uni-CLI fixes this. One command, structured JSON output, self-repairing YAML adapters. ~80 tokens per invocation — two orders of magnitude cheaper than MCP.

npm install -g @zenalexa/unicli
unicli hackernews top --limit 5          # Public API
unicli bilibili hot                      # Chinese platform
unicli twitter search "AI agents"        # Authenticated
unicli blender render scene.blend        # Desktop software
unicli cursor ask "explain this code"    # Electron app

Compared to

Source-level honest comparison. Numbers are from a 2026-04-07 audit of cloned reference repos under ref/. Full breakdown in docs/COMPARE.md.

| Project | Shape | Best when | Where Uni-CLI fits | | ----------------------------- | ---------------------------------- | ----------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------- | | opencli (14K) | TypeScript adapter hub | The genome — Uni-CLI extends it | Uni-CLI = 35 pipeline steps vs 15, +eval, +repair | | CLI-Anything (29K, HKUDS) | Python adapter hub + skill gen | Desktop-app coverage (44 harnesses) | Uni-CLI = 134 sites web breadth, single-binary | | browser-use (86K) | Python library, LLM per step | Open-ended browser tasks | Different shape — embed vs invoke | | goose (38K, MCP-first) | MCP-host runtime | MCP-only environments | unicli mcp serve mounts as MCP server | | hermes-agent (30K) | Agent w/ memory + multi-platform | Long-running personal agent | Different category — hermes is agent, Uni-CLI = tool | | Stagehand | Browser-only observe/act/extract | Vision-grounded web tasks | Uni-CLI v0.208 ships unicli operate observe |

Why CLI

| Criterion | MCP | CLI (Uni-CLI) | | ------------------- | --------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------- | | Cost per invocation | 550–1,400 tokens (tool definition) | ~80 tokens | | Context overhead | 3 servers = 72% of 200K window consumed | Zero | | Composability | Single-tool calls | Unix pipes, jq, shell scripts | | Self-repair | Agents cannot read server source | Agent reads 20-line YAML, edits, retries | | Universality | Requires MCP client support | Every agent has Bash | | Auth reuse | Per-server configuration | Chrome login sessions via daemon |

CLI is: universal, composable, self-repairable, and context-efficient. MCP is a protocol for tool registration. They solve different problems. Uni-CLI supports both — use unicli mcp for MCP-only environments.

Architecture

                         unicli <site> <command> [args]
                                    │
                    ┌───────────────┼───────────────┐
                    ▼               ▼               ▼
              YAML Adapter    TS Adapter      Bridge (passthrough)
              (20 lines)      (complex logic)   (gh, docker, vercel)
                    │               │               │
                    ▼               ▼               ▼
              ┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
              │          Pipeline Engine (30 steps)      │
              │  fetch · navigate · evaluate · click     │
              │  type · press · scroll · wait · tap      │
              │  intercept · snapshot · download          │
              │  websocket · exec · write_temp · ...      │
              └─────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┘
                        │               │
              ┌─────────▼─────┐ ┌───────▼───────┐
              │  Direct CDP   │ │    Daemon      │
              │  (fast, local)│ │  (persistent,  │
              │               │ │  reuses Chrome │
              │               │ │  login state)  │
              └───────────────┘ └───────────────┘
                        │               │
              ┌─────────▼───────────────▼───────┐
              │       Output Formatter           │
              │  table · json · yaml · csv · md  │
              │  (auto-JSON when piped)          │
              └─────────────────────────────────┘

Self-Repair

This is the core differentiator. When a command fails:

unicli <site> <cmd> fails
  → structured error JSON: { adapter_path, step, action, suggestion }
  → agent reads the 20-line YAML at that path
  → agent edits the YAML (selector changed, API versioned, auth rotated)
  → agent retries → fixed
  → fix persists in ~/.unicli/adapters/ (survives npm update)

Verification: unicli repair <site> <command> diagnoses, unicli test [site] validates.

Coverage

Web Platforms (67 sites)

| Category | Sites | | -------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Tech / Dev | hackernews, stackoverflow, devto, lobsters, producthunt, hf, github-trending, substack, lesswrong | | Social — International | twitter (25 cmds), reddit (16), instagram (19), tiktok (15), facebook (10), bluesky, medium | | Social — Chinese | bilibili (13), weibo, zhihu, xiaohongshu (13), douyin (13), jike, douban, weread, tieba, v2ex, linux-do, zsxq, xiaoyuzhou | | Video / Media | youtube (5), bilibili, douyin, tiktok | | Finance | xueqiu, sinafinance, barchart, yahoo-finance | | News | bbc, bloomberg (10), reuters, 36kr, google news | | Shopping | amazon (8), xianyu, coupang, smzdm, jd | | Jobs | boss (14), linkedin | | AI Platforms | gemini (5), grok, doubao-web (9), notebooklm (15), yollomi (12), jimeng, yuanbao | | Education | chaoxing, arxiv, wikipedia | | Other | ones (11), band, xiaoe, pixiv (6), hupu (7), ctrip, sinablog, steam, lobsters |

Desktop Software (28 apps)

| Category | Apps | | ---------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- | | 3D / CAD | blender (13 cmds), freecad (15), cloudcompare (4), openscad | | Image | gimp (12), inkscape, imagemagick (6), krita (4) | | Video | ffmpeg (11), kdenlive (3), shotcut (3), musescore (5) | | Diagram | drawio, mermaid | | Document | libreoffice, pandoc | | Audio | audacity (8) | | Streaming | obs (8, WebSocket) | | Productivity | zotero (8) | | Dev Services | wiremock (5), adguardhome (5), novita (3) | | Game | slay-the-spire-ii (6, HTTP bridge mod) | | Design | sketch (3) |

Electron Apps (8 apps, 66 commands)

| App | Commands | Method | | --------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------- | | Cursor | ask, send, read, model, composer, extract-code, new, status, screenshot, dump, history, export | CDP :9226 | | Codex | ask, send, read, model, extract-diff, new, status, screenshot, dump, history, export | CDP :9222 | | ChatGPT | ask, send, read, model, new, status, screenshot, dump | CDP :9236 | | Notion | search, read, write, new, status, sidebar, favorites, export, screenshot | CDP :9230 | | Discord | servers, channels, read, send, search, members, status | CDP :9232 | | ChatWise | ask, send, read, model, new, status, screenshot, dump | CDP :9228 | | Doubao | ask, send, read, new, status, screenshot, dump | CDP :9225 | | Antigravity | ask, send, read, model, new, status, screenshot, dump | CDP :9234 |

Bridge (passthrough to existing CLIs)

docker, gh, jq, yt-dlp, vercel, supabase, wrangler, lark, dingtalk, hf, claude-code, codex-cli, opencode, aws, gcloud, az, doctl, netlify, railway, flyctl, pscale, neonctl, slack

Pipeline Engine

30 steps execute in sequence. Each YAML adapter is a pipeline of these steps.

| Step | Type | What it does | | ------------ | --------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | fetch | API | HTTP JSON with retry, backoff, cookie injection, concurrent fan-out (limit=5) | | fetch_text | API | HTTP raw text (RSS, HTML, XML) | | parse_rss | API | RSS 2.0 + Atom feed parser | | html_to_md | API | HTML → Markdown via Turndown | | select | Transform | Navigate JSON by dot-path (data.items[]) | | map | Transform | Transform each item via ${{ }} templates | | filter | Transform | Keep items matching expression | | sort | Transform | Sort by field (numeric-aware) | | limit | Transform | Cap result count | | exec | Desktop | Run subprocess with stdin, env, file output | | write_temp | Desktop | Create ephemeral script file | | navigate | Browser | Navigate Chrome to URL via CDP | | evaluate | Browser | Execute JS in page context | | click | Browser | Click element by CSS selector | | type | Browser | Type text into input | | press | Browser | Keyboard key with modifiers (Ctrl+A, Enter) | | wait | Browser | Wait for time, selector, or text | | scroll | Browser | Direction scroll, auto-scroll to bottom | | intercept | Browser | Capture fetch + XHR responses (dual-patched, stealthed) | | snapshot | Browser | DOM accessibility tree with interactive refs | | tap | Browser | Vue Store Action Bridge (Pinia/Vuex → capture network) | | download | Media | HTTP + yt-dlp, batch concurrent, skip_existing | | websocket | Service | WebSocket connect/send/receive (OBS auth support) | | set | Control | Store variables into vars context for templates | | if | Control | Conditional execution of sub-pipeline branches | | append | Control | Push ctx.data into vars array for accumulation | | each | Control | Loop sub-pipeline with do-while + max iteration limit | | parallel | Control | Run sub-pipelines concurrently with merge strategies | | rate_limit | Control | Per-domain token bucket request throttling |

Template Expressions

29 pipe filters: join, urlencode, urldecode, slice, replace, lowercase, uppercase, trim, default, split, first, last, length, strip_html, truncate, slugify, sanitize, ext, basename, keys, json, abs, round, ceil, floor, int, float, str, reverse, unique

${{ item.title | truncate(50) }}
${{ item.tags | join(', ') }}
${{ args.query | urlencode }}
${{ item.url | basename | sanitize }}
${{ item.score > 100 ? 'hot' : 'normal' }}

VM sandbox with null-prototype isolation, 50ms timeout, forbidden pattern blocklist.

Authentication Strategies

| Strategy | Auth | How | | ----------- | ------------- | -------------------------------------------------------- | | public | None | Direct HTTP fetch | | cookie | Cookie file | ~/.unicli/cookies/<site>.json injected into headers | | header | Cookie + CSRF | Cookie + auto-extracted CSRF token (ct0, bili_jct, etc.) | | intercept | Browser | Navigate page, capture XHR/fetch responses | | ui | Browser | Direct DOM interaction (click, type, submit) |

Strategy cascade: auto-probes PUBLIC → COOKIE → HEADER on first run.

Browser Daemon

Persistent background process that bridges CLI commands to Chrome tabs. Reuses existing Chrome login sessions — no cookie files, no extension install required for basic operation.

unicli daemon status              # Check daemon state
unicli daemon stop                # Graceful shutdown (auto-exits after 4h idle)

unicli operate open <url>         # Navigate browser
unicli operate state              # DOM snapshot (accessibility tree)
unicli operate click <ref>        # Click by ref from snapshot
unicli operate type <ref> <text>  # Type into element
unicli operate eval <js>          # Execute JavaScript
unicli operate screenshot [path]  # Capture page
unicli operate network            # View captured requests

unicli record <url>               # Auto-generate adapter from page traffic

Plugin System

unicli plugin install github:user/repo     # From GitHub
unicli plugin install /local/path          # From local directory
unicli plugin list                         # Show installed
unicli plugin update                       # Update all

Plugins can register custom pipeline steps via registerStep() and lifecycle hooks:

import { onBeforeExecute, onAfterExecute } from "unicli/hooks";
onBeforeExecute(async (ctx) => {
  /* rate limiting, logging */
});
onAfterExecute(async (ctx, result) => {
  /* analytics, caching */
});

Shell Completion

unicli completion bash >> ~/.bashrc
unicli completion zsh >> ~/.zshrc
unicli completion fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/unicli.fish

Anti-Detection

13-layer stealth injection for browser automation:

1. navigator.webdriver removal
2. window.chrome.runtime mock
3. Plugin array normalization
4. Language header consistency
5. Permissions API notification fix
6. Function.prototype.toString spoofing
7. CDP global cleanup (cdc_, __playwright, __puppeteer)
8. Error.stack frame filtering
9. outerWidth/outerHeight normalization
10. Performance API entry filtering
11. Document-level CDP marker cleanup
12. iframe contentWindow.chrome consistency
13. Reserved (debugger trap neutralization)

Exit Codes

Following sysexits.h:

| Code | Meaning | When | | ---- | ----------- | ----------------------------- | | 0 | Success | Command completed | | 1 | Error | Unexpected failure | | 2 | Usage | Bad arguments | | 66 | Empty | No data returned | | 69 | Unavailable | Browser/service not connected | | 75 | Temporary | Timeout — retry | | 77 | Auth | Not logged in | | 78 | Config | Missing credentials |

Development

git clone https://github.com/olo-dot-io/Uni-CLI.git && cd Uni-CLI
npm install
npm run dev -- list                   # Test adapter loading
npm run verify                        # format + typecheck + lint + test + build
npm run test:adapter                  # Validate all 601 YAML/TS adapters

| Command | Purpose | | ---------------------- | ----------------------- | | npm run dev | Development run | | npm run build | Production build | | npm run typecheck | TypeScript strict check | | npm run lint | Oxlint | | npm run test | Unit tests (753) | | npm run test:adapter | Adapter validation | | npm run verify | Full pipeline |

Technology

| Layer | Technology | | -------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | Language | TypeScript (strict) | | Runtime | Node.js ≥ 20 | | CLI | Commander | | Browser | Raw CDP via ws (WebSocket) — no Puppeteer, no Playwright | | Test | Vitest | | Lint | Oxlint | | Format | Prettier | | Template | VM sandbox (null-prototype, 50ms timeout) |

Zero production dependencies beyond: chalk, cli-table3, commander, js-yaml, turndown, undici, ws.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md. The fastest way to contribute: write a 20-line YAML adapter for a site you use.

License

Apache-2.0