title: HKU Open Source CLI-Anything: One Command Turns Any Software into AI Agent Controllable Tools date: 2026-03-11 slug: cli-anything-ai-agent-control categories: - Artificial Intelligence - Open Source Tools tags: - AI Agent - CLI - Automation - GIMP - Blender - OBS Studio description: HKU's new open source project CLI-Anything dominates GitHub Trending! One command turns GIMP, Blender, LibreOffice, OBS Studio and other software into AI Agent controllable tools, 3 days 3.5k+ stars. cover: https://res.makeronsite.com/dashen-tech.com/cli-anything-ai-agent-control-cover.webp
🦞 HKU Open Source CLI-Anything: One Command Turns Any Software into AI Agent Controllable Tools¶
Today GitHub Trending list was dominated by an open source project from the University of Hong Kong - CLI-Anything.
Released only 3 days ago, GitHub Stars soared to 3.5k+, Forks 334 times, and the heat is still rising!
This project solves an extremely elegant problem: How to make AI Agents truly controllable to operate professional software.
Core Insight: CLI is the Universal Interface for Humans and AI Agents¶
CLI-Anything's core concept is very ingenious:
Rather than letting Agents screenshot and click, fighting against fragile UI automation, it's better to directly turn software into structured command-line tools.
Imagine: - GIMP image processing → becomes CLI commands - Blender 3D modeling → becomes CLI commands - LibreOffice document editing → becomes CLI commands - OBS Studio live streaming → becomes CLI commands
All called through command line, JSON output, undo/redo, zero-config installation, Agents call directly, rock solid.
Fully Automated 7-Stage Pipeline¶
CLI-Anything's most powerful aspect is its automation level. One command, complete workflow:
cli-anything generate --app gimp
Then automatically executes:
- Code Analysis - Parse software source code structure
- Architecture Design - Design CLI interface architecture
- CLI Implementation - Generate command-line tool code
- Testing - Automatically generate test cases
- Documentation - Generate usage documentation
- Publishing - Package and publish
- Verification - Verify through 1,436 tests
Already covers 9 professional software, not Demo, truly production-grade tools.
Why CLI is the Future for AI Agents?¶
Today's software serves humans, tomorrow's users will be Agents.
Pain points of traditional UI automation: - Depends on screenshots and image recognition, unstable - UI changes cause script failures - Cannot handle complex interactions - Difficult to debug
Advantages of CLI approach: - Structured input/output (JSON) - Support undo/redo operations - Zero-config installation - Easy to debug and test - Agents can call directly
Supported Software¶
Currently CLI-Anything already covers 9 professional software:
- 🎨 GIMP - Image editing
- 🎬 Blender - 3D modeling and animation
- 📄 LibreOffice - Office suite
- 📹 OBS Studio - Live streaming
- 🎵 Audacity - Audio editing
- 📊 Inkscape - Vector graphics
- 🎹 Kdenlive - Video editing
- 📝 Scribus - Desktop publishing
- 🔧 More software continuously added...
Usage Examples¶
Taking GIMP as example:
# Open image
cli-gimp open image.png
# Resize
cli-gimp resize --width 1920 --height 1080
# Apply filter
cli-gimp filter gaussian-blur --radius 5
# Export
cli-gimp export output.png
# Undo operation
cli-gimp undo
AI Agents can directly call these commands, achieving fully automated image processing workflows.
Project Information¶
- GitHub: https://github.com/HKUDS/CLI-Anything
- Organization: University of Hong Kong (HKU)
- Stars: 3.5k+ (continuing to rise)
- Test Coverage: 1,436 tests passed
- License: Open source
Summary¶
CLI-Anything represents an important trend: Software design goals shift from "human-usable" to "Agent-usable".
When AI Agents become the main users of software, CLI this structured, programmable interface will be more important than GUI.
This project not only provides ready-made tools, more importantly it demonstrates an approach: How to quickly adapt existing software for the AI Agent era.
If you're developing AI Agent related projects, or interested in software automation, CLI-Anything is definitely worth attention.
Reference Links:
- GitHub: https://github.com/HKUDS/CLI-Anything
- Trending: https://github.com/trending