The CLI Is Back and This Time, It's Personal

CLIcultureai

For years, we treated the command line like an artifact. A relic for sysadmins. A badge for power users. A black screen with a blinking cursor that separated “real developers” from everyone else. Meanwhile, the world moved to glossy UIs. Buttons got rounder. Animations got smoother. SaaS dashboards multiplied. Every problem came with a web interface.

And now, almost quietly, the CLI is back.

But this time, it’s different.

It’s not about memorizing flags. It’s not about arcane syntax. It’s not about proving you know grep.

It’s about building.

From Precision Input to Personal Tooling

The original command line demanded precision:

git commit -m "fix issue"
docker compose up --build
ls -la

You had to know the command. The flags. The order. The structure.

For years, creating your own CLI tools required even more precision. Argument parsers, help text, packaging, distribution, documentation. It was powerful, but heavy.

AI changes that part of the equation.

Now, you can describe the tool you wish existed and generate the scaffolding in minutes. You can refine it iteratively. You can evolve it alongside your workflow. Instead of spending hours wiring up boilerplate, you focus on behavior.

The interface is still text.

But now, you’re not just consuming commands.

You’re creating them.

The Collapse of Interface Layers

Graphical interfaces exist to reduce cognitive load. They guide you. They constrain you. They prevent mistakes. But they also:

  • Hide power
  • Slow down experts
  • Require product teams to predict every use case
  • Lock you into workflows someone else imagined

Traditional SaaS products are designed for averages. They must serve thousands or millions of users. That means compromise.

When you build a CLI tool for yourself, there is no average.

There is only you.

AI makes it dramatically easier to construct small, purpose-built tools that do exactly one thing the way you want it done. Not a platform. Not a dashboard. A sharp instrument.

Text becomes not just an interface but a construction surface.

The Rise of “Built For Me”

We’re entering an era where it’s easier to build your own utilities than to search for the perfect SaaS.

Need a script that:

  • Pulls data from an API
  • Transforms it into your preferred format
  • Applies your naming conventions
  • Publishes it to your environment

You can build it in an afternoon.

Not because you suddenly have more time.

But because AI reduces the friction of creation:

  • Generating argument parsing
  • Suggesting edge-case handling
  • Writing tests
  • Structuring the project
  • Refactoring as it grows

The CLI becomes the thinnest possible layer between your workflow and your automation.

This is what “built for me” looks like.

Not asking a generic tool to adapt to you.

But shaping the tool yourself.

Simplicity Through Ownership

There’s something deeply elegant about this shift.

For decades, we’ve chosen between:

  • Simple but rigid SaaS products
  • Powerful but time-consuming custom tooling

Now, you can build small, composable, single-purpose tools without turning them into full-blown projects. You can keep them local. You can chain them together. You can version them with your code.

And because they’re yours, they stay simple.

They don’t accumulate features for hypothetical users.

They solve your problem.

The Cursor as a Workshop

The blinking cursor used to be intimidating. Now it feels like a workbench.

No ads. No onboarding flows. No pricing tiers. No feature comparison grids.

Just:

A problem. A script. A result.

With AI assisting the build process, the CLI becomes less about memorizing commands and more about crafting utilities.

You’re not navigating someone else’s interface.

You’re shaping your own.

The Irony

We spent 30 years building increasingly complex graphical products to make software accessible.

Now we’re rediscovering that the simplest surface, text, becomes incredibly powerful when the barrier to building is lowered.

The CLI isn’t returning because nostalgia won.

It’s returning because creation got easier.

The Future Feels Smaller

Big platforms will still exist. Mass-market SaaS isn’t going anywhere.

But alongside them, something quieter is growing:

  • Tiny internal tools
  • Personal automations
  • Lightweight CLIs tailored to a single workflow
  • Utilities that live in a repo instead of a subscription

Software that feels less like a product you bought but more like something you assembled.

The CLI is the perfect surface for that.

Minimal. Composable. Personal.

The future of computing might not look like a dashboard at all.

It might look like a blinking cursor and a growing collection of small tools you built yourself.