Open-source CLI MCP clients
Terminal MCP clients available on GitHub (state on 2026-09-30):
| Project | What it is | Stars / license | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| chrishayuk/mcp-cli | Feature-rich CLI with chat, interactive and command modes, streaming, tool execution; defaults to Ollama with the gpt-oss model, also OpenAI/Anthropic | ~2.0k, Apache-2.0 | active, not archived |
| adhikasp/mcp-client-cli | Simple CLI to run LLM prompts as an MCP client (alternative to Claude Desktop) | ~675, MIT | not archived; last-commit date not verified |
| jonigl/mcp-client-for-ollama | TUI client connecting local Ollama models to MCP servers (STDIO/SSE/HTTP), agent mode, human-in-the-loop | ~828, MIT | active |
See also mcporter (call MCP servers from the CLI/TypeScript) and ollama-mcp.