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netscli is an open-source network scanner written in Rust by publisher Felix Stubner, currently at version 0.2.0 across a history of seven released versions. The tool is designed for discovering and inspecting devices on a local subnet, combining several diagnostic capabilities into a single utility: it discovers hosts, scans TCP ports, resolves DNS names including mDNS and Bonjour services, reads the ARP table with vendor lookup, and optionally captures packets through Npcap. This feature set makes it relevant to the network administration and security tooling category, where it can support use cases such as auditing which devices are connected to a network, identifying open ports on hosts, troubleshooting name resolution for local services, attributing hardware vendors to observed MAC addresses, and performing lightweight packet inspection. A distinguishing characteristic of netscli is the variety of interfaces through which the same functionality is exposed. Users who prefer scripting or quick one-off commands can work from the command line interface, while an interactive terminal UI with autocomplete serves those who want guided, exploratory scanning sessions in the shell. A desktop application provides a graphical alternative for users who prefer window-based tools, and a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server allows AI agents, such as Claude Code and Cursor, to invoke the scanner's capabilities directly as part of agent-driven workflows. Because the underlying scanning logic is shared across all four front ends, results remain consistent regardless of how the tool is accessed. Being open source and implemented in Rust, netscli also fits environments that value memory safety and inspectable code. Overall, the software positions itself as a versatile, multi-interface network discovery and scanning solution for administrators, developers, and AI-assisted workflows on local networks.
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