With the rapid development of AI Agents, it has become a pain point for the developer community to have large models directly control professional software (such as image editing, 3D modeling, office suites, etc.). Traditional UI automation solutions are prone to failure, while manually writing scripts for integration is time-consuming and laborious. Recently, the Data Intelligence Lab at the University of Hong Kong (HKUDS) launched an open-source project CLI-Anything, completely revolutionizing this situation: with just one command, any software can be transformed into a structured command-line tool that AI Agents can directly call, truly realizing an "Agent-Native" software ecosystem.
Core Innovation: Automated Generation of CLI, Making Software Understand AI Commands
CLI-Anything uses a fully automated seven-stage pipeline (source code analysis → architecture design → implementation of Click CLI → test planning → test writing → documentation generation → publishing Python package), automatically building production-ready command-line interfaces from software source code or repositories. The generated CLI has the following key features:
- Structured and Composable: Command text perfectly matches large model input, supporting complex workflow chaining;
- Native JSON Output: All commands support the --json flag, making it easy for AI to parse, avoiding complex post-processing;
- Self-Descriptive: Standard --help provides automatic documentation, allowing Agents to discover functions on their own;
- Interactive REPL Mode: A unified terminal interface, supporting history and progress display;
- High Reliability: Has covered 1,588+ tests (including unit tests and end-to-end tests), all passed successfully.
Different from fragile GUI automation or RPA solutions, CLI-Anything directly calls the real backend of the software (such as Blender rendering engine, LibreOffice file processing), generating standard project files (SVG, ODF, MLT XML, etc.), ensuring complete functionality and strong determinism.
Supported Software Matrix Continuously Expanding
The project has already provided full CLI support for 13 mainstream open-source and professional software, including:
- GIMP (image editing)
- Blender (3D modeling)
- Inkscape (vector graphics)
- Audacity (audio production)
- LibreOffice (office suite)
- OBS Studio (live streaming recording)
- Kdenlive / Shotcut (video editing)
- Zoom (video conferencing)
- Draw.io / Mermaid (chart creation)
- ComfyUI (AI image generation), and more.
The team stated that in the future, they will cover more fields such as CAD, DAW, IDE, and scientific computing tools, and welcome community contributions for custom software CLI packaging.
Simple Installation and Integration, One-Click Access to Mainstream Agent Frameworks
The installation barrier is extremely low, especially for Claude Code users:
Add through the plugin market:
/plugin marketplace add HKUDS/CLI-Anything
/plugin install cli-anything
Then you can run:
/cli-anything
The project also supports seamless integration with various Agent frameworks such as OpenClaw (via SKILL.md skill files), OpenCode, Codex, Qodercli, etc. It runs entirely locally without cloud dependencies or complicated configurations.
Strong Community Response, GitHub Stars Exceed 17,000
Since its open-source release, CLI-Anything quickly climbed the GitHub trends, gaining tens of thousands of stars within a short time. Developers have expressed that this is not only a tool but also a crucial infrastructure towards the future where "Agents control all software." Many people have already started trying to integrate it into their workflows, achieving AI automatic batch processing of images, rendering 3D models, editing videos, and more scenarios.
Project Address: https://github.com/HKUDS/CLI-Anything
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