Sudo make me a sandwich. The future has arrived! DoorDash just introduced a limited beta of DoorDash CLI, a command-line tool for developers that lets you order DoorDash directly from your AI agent. The tool can be used to search stores, find deals, and check out, the company says.
Called “dd-cli,” the new tool is open to U.S. and Canadian macOS developers via a waitlist, said DoorDash co-founder and CTO Andy Fang in a post on X. DoorDash was asked for comment about the new feature.
The announcement is getting a lot of attention because, on the face of it, it’s rather funny. Command-line tools are associated with programming, not ordering lunch. An AI agent running commands to order your salad or sandwich can initially feel somewhat absurd.
But the DoorDash CLI isn’t actually a joke; it’s an example of what agentic commerce can look like.
With this move, the company is exposing DoorDash’s ordering platform to AI agents, allowing developers to add functionality to their own software and services. That means instead of visiting DoorDash’s app, developers could build their own tools for ordering food, groceries, or finding local lunch deals, among other things, or use those capabilities as building blocks that are combined with other tools.
DoorDash, too, has experimented with offering its service via iMessage and now has its own AI chatbot, “Ask DoorDash,” — offering two examples of how agentic commerce can work. It also exposes its service to AI chatbots, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Claude.
The company’s sign-up form for access to the new CLI tool includes a field asking developers what they would build, if allowed into the beta.
The launch has a bit of humor to it, as it recalls that old XKCD comic about programmers automating ridiculous tasks — like making a sandwich. In the comic, a programmer says “make me a sandwich,” and the other person responds, “What? Make it yourself,” so the programmer says “sudo make me a sandwich,” and the other person says “OK.” (It’s programming humor, okay?)
The attached video in the X post leans into the over-engineering angle, as it reads Slack, recalls memories, parses JSON, inspects menu structures, runs Python scripts, recovers from errors, and calculates totals, just to do something as simple as ordering three salads. As the task runs, the interface reads “Flibbertigibbeting,” making the whole thing even funnier.
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