What Is CData CLI? Connecting Your AI Agents to Hundreds of Data Sources

CData CLI (cdatacli) is a Java-based terminal tool designed to let AI agents access hundreds of supported data sources through CData JDBC Drivers using SQL rather than vendor-specific APIs, browsers, servers, or MCP integrations. It provides filtered metadata commands for schema discovery, supports driver installation and activation, stores reusable authenticated connections, and relies on driver-side query pushdown to limit transferred data and reduce the work performed by language models. The walkthrough uses Salesforce as an example, showing how an agent can install a skill that explains CLI usage, configure OAuth authentication, locate the Opportunity table and its columns, validate a sample query, and retrieve high-value opportunities with SQL. After validating the query, the agent can generate a standalone Java application that uses the same JDBC driver and cached OAuth settings to access live Salesforce data without requiring the CLI, an AI agent, or an LLM at runtime.

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