MCP vs CLI vs web console
The MCP server is one of three ways to interact with Loguro. They share auth and read the same data — pick whichever has the lowest friction in the moment.
| Reach for MCP when… | Reach for CLI when… | Reach for Web Console when… |
|---|---|---|
| Debugging in the IDE: ask Claude/Cursor about a failure and let it query logs iteratively | Reproducible scripts: cron jobs, CI alerts, loguro logs --json \| jq | Visual exploration: charts, timeline view, replay, saved view dashboards |
| Natural-language questions: “show me errors after the deploy at 14:00” | Direct queries you already know: loguro logs -l error --from 1h | Setting up integrations interactively (OAuth flows, Slack app install) |
Multi-step investigation where Claude calls get_log_timeline then group_logs then get_distinct_values autonomously | One-shot ad-hoc queries from terminal, piping into other tools | First-time onboarding for someone new to your project |
| Sharing context with the AI without copy-pasting log dumps | Bulk operations: project + key + alert in one shell session | Issue creation with rich UI, log shares, embed widgets |
Token footprint
The MCP exposes 6 focused tools (query_logs, get_log_timeline, get_distinct_values, group_logs, get_slow_logs, sample_logs) — roughly 1k tokens of system prompt vs the 5–10k tokens of MCPs that ship 30+ generic tools. That overhead matters when you run smaller models or have a long debugging conversation.
Latency
Each tool call is a single fetch — no SQL round-tripping through an interpreter. For interactive AI workflows this is fast enough that Claude can chain 3–5 calls in a single turn without lag.
For bulk fetches (10k+ rows, exports, scripted pipelines) the CLI streams JSON faster — use loguro logs --json | jq instead.
Combine them
- CLI for setup and scripted workflows
- MCP for IDE-driven debugging and natural-language exploration
- Web for visual analysis and saved-view dashboards
All three share auth and read the same data — switch freely based on what’s least friction in the moment.