"Six months ago, everyone was talking about MCPs. And I was like, screw MCPs. Every MCP would be better as a CLI."

— Peter Steinberger, Founder of OpenClaw Watch on YouTube (~2:39:00) | Lex Fridman Podcast #491

Xero CLI

A production-ready command-line interface for the Xero accounting API. Manage invoices, contacts, accounts, bank transactions, and payments directly from your terminal.

Disclaimer: This is an unofficial CLI tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by Xero Limited.

Features

• Invoices — List, get, and create invoices with full line item support
• Contacts — Manage customers and suppliers
• Accounts — Browse your chart of accounts
• Payments — View payment history
• Bank Transactions — Reconcile and view bank transactions
• OAuth 2.0 Auth — Secure authentication with automatic token refresh
• JSON output — All commands support --json for scripting and piping
• Colorized output — Clean, readable terminal output with chalk

Why CLI > MCP

MCP servers are complex, stateful, and require a running server process. A CLI is:

• Simpler — Just a binary you call directly
• Composable — Pipe output to jq, grep, awk, and other tools
• Scriptable — Use in shell scripts, CI/CD pipelines, cron jobs
• Debuggable — See exactly what's happening with --json flag
• AI-friendly — AI agents can call CLIs just as easily as MCPs, with less overhead

Installation

npm install -g @ktmcp-cli/xero

Authentication Setup

Xero uses OAuth 2.0. You'll need to create an app in the Xero Developer Portal.

1. Create a Xero App

1. Go to developer.xero.com
2. Click New App
3. Set redirect URI to http://localhost:8765/callback
4. Copy your Client ID and Client Secret

2. Configure the CLI

xero config set --client-id YOUR_CLIENT_ID --client-secret YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET

3. Login

xero auth login

This will open a browser window for OAuth consent. After approving, the CLI will automatically store your tokens and connect to your Xero organisation.

4. Verify

xero auth status

Commands

Configuration

# Set credentials
xero config set --client-id <id> --client-secret <secret>

# Show current config
xero config show

Authentication

# Login via OAuth 2.0
xero auth login

# Check auth status
xero auth status

Invoices

# List all invoices
xero invoices list

# Filter by status
xero invoices list --status DRAFT
xero invoices list --status AUTHORISED
xero invoices list --status PAID

# Limit results
xero invoices list --limit 20

# Get a specific invoice
xero invoices get <invoice-id>

# Create an invoice
xero invoices create \
  --contact <contact-id> \
  --line-items '[{"Description":"Consulting Services","Quantity":10,"UnitAmount":150,"AccountCode":"200"}]' \
  --status DRAFT

Contacts

# List all contacts
xero contacts list

# Search contacts
xero contacts list --search "Acme Corp"

# Get a specific contact
xero contacts get <contact-id>

# Create a contact
xero contacts create --name "Acme Corp" --email "billing@acme.com"
xero contacts create --name "John Doe" --email "john@example.com" --phone "+1234567890"

Accounts

# List chart of accounts
xero accounts list

Payments

# List payments
xero payments list

Bank Transactions

# List all bank transactions
xero bank-transactions list

# Filter by bank account
xero bank-transactions list --account-id <account-id>

JSON Output

All commands support --json for machine-readable output:

# Get all invoices as JSON
xero invoices list --json

# Pipe to jq for filtering
xero invoices list --json | jq '.[] | select(.Status == "DRAFT") | {id: .InvoiceID, total: .Total}'

# Get contact details
xero contacts get <id> --json | jq '{name: .Name, email: .EmailAddress}'

Examples

Create and track an invoice

# First, find the contact
xero contacts list --search "Acme"

# Create a draft invoice
xero invoices create \
  --contact abc123-def456 \
  --line-items '[
    {"Description":"Web Development","Quantity":40,"UnitAmount":125,"AccountCode":"200"},
    {"Description":"Hosting (monthly)","Quantity":1,"UnitAmount":50,"AccountCode":"200"}
  ]'

# List draft invoices
xero invoices list --status DRAFT

Reconcile bank transactions

# List all bank accounts (from accounts)
xero accounts list --json | jq '.[] | select(.Type == "BANK") | {code: .Code, name: .Name, id: .AccountID}'

# List transactions for a specific account
xero bank-transactions list --account-id <account-id>

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome at github.com/ktmcp-cli/xero.

License

MIT — see LICENSE for details.

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Part of the KTMCP CLI project — replacing MCPs with simple, composable CLIs.