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> CLI- as opposed to what ? What other option is there that is easier and safer to implement ?

A library, with an exposed pubic API that a compiler will, y'know, refuse to compile against when the expected arguments to a call you depend on are completely changed?

Depending on blind CLI calls that silently fail is about the least safe option possible.

powershell approach comes to mind - you just pass objects.

Actual libraries.

But if it's a C library then there are memory issues, buffer overflows, undefined behaviour — everything that's bad about C.

The right thing IMHO would be to use pipes & stdin/stdout/stderr, but with a well-defined machine interface.

Agreed, which is why C should be treated as the "portable macro assembler" it is and just like Assembly, those libraries should be wrapped in higher level languages.

And then someone wraps it in a CLI interface.

What you need is a kernel that exposes programs as a file system like plan9

>What you need is a kernel that exposes programs as a file system like plan9

Powershell?

That is what the REPL like on Lisp Machines, Interlisp-D, Smalltalk, Mesa/Cedar, Oberon is for.

Passing JSON over stdin and stdout comes to mind.