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Vision

mxcli and MDL exist to make Mendix development accessible to coding agents, automation pipelines, and developers who prefer text-based tools. The long-term goal is a complete alternative to Mendix Studio Pro that runs headless, integrates with AI workflows, and never requires leaving VS Code.

Coding Agents First

The primary audience for mxcli is not a human typing commands – it is a coding agent (Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, OpenCode, Cursor, Windsurf, or similar) that reads, reasons about, and modifies Mendix projects autonomously. Everything in mxcli is designed with this in mind:

  • MDL as machine-readable output. Every DESCRIBE command produces valid MDL that can be fed back as input. Agents can read a microflow, modify it, and write it back without lossy format conversions.
  • Skills and context files. mxcli init generates structured skill files that teach agents MDL syntax, common patterns, and project conventions – reducing hallucination and retry loops.
  • Headless operation. mxcli is a single static binary with no GUI, no daemon, and no login. It runs in CI pipelines, containers, and sandboxed agent environments without setup friction.

QA Feedback in the Agentic Loop

Agents produce better results when they can evaluate their own output. mxcli provides the tooling to close this feedback loop:

  • mxcli check validates MDL syntax and catches anti-patterns before changes are applied.
  • mxcli lint runs 40+ rules across the full project, surfacing issues an agent can fix in the same session.
  • mxcli docker build and mx check compile and validate the project against the real Mendix runtime, catching structural errors that static analysis misses.
  • mxcli test runs microflow tests inside a live Mendix container, giving agents pass/fail signals on functional correctness.

Together, these tools let an agent write MDL, validate it, fix issues, and verify the result – all without human intervention.

VS Code as the Review Surface

While agents do the building, humans need to review and approve the result. The VS Code extension (vscode-mdl) provides the visual tools to do this without leaving the editor:

  • Syntax highlighting, diagnostics, and completion for .mdl files.
  • Hover and go-to-definition for navigating the Mendix model from code.
  • Context menu commands to run, check, and lint MDL directly from the editor.
  • Terminal link integration so that entity names, microflow references, and error locations in terminal output are clickable.

The goal is that a developer can review an agent’s changes, run the app, inspect the result, and approve – all within VS Code.

Long-Term Roadmap

The end state is a complete headless development environment for Mendix:

CapabilityStatusDescription
Model read/writeShippedFull domain model, microflow, page, security, navigation, workflow support
Validation and lintingShippedmxcli check, mxcli lint, 40+ rules, SARIF output for CI
Build and runShippedmxcli docker build/run with hot reload
TestingShipped.test.mdl microflow tests with Docker runtime
VS Code extensionShippedLSP, diagnostics, completion, hover, go-to-definition
External SQLShippedQuery PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server; import data
Mendix MarketplacePlannedInstall and manage Marketplace modules from the CLI
Mendix Cloud deploymentPlannedDeploy to Mendix Cloud environments without Studio Pro
Mendix CatalogPlannedPublish and consume APIs via the Mendix Catalog
Visual page previewPlannedPreview pages in VS Code without running the app
Full Studio Pro parityLong-termCover remaining metamodel domains (REST, OData, consumed services, etc.)

The measure of success is simple: a team should be able to develop, test, review, and deploy a Mendix application without ever opening Studio Pro.