[marmaduke]

> much different than a remote HTTP/ReST API

does that make subprocess module like urllib, and these wrappers like the ubiquitous requests package?

I think it's harder than you say: a given tool like grep has an API the size of an entire website, and then depending on usage, has different usage patterns which different optimizations.

Also, a REST API user is consuming an API, whereas a CLI wrapper is consuming an API to implement another. Much bigger fish to fry there, I think.