Two pip installs. Live AWS spot data in Claude Code and your terminal.

Two things shipped today:

pip install refinex-mcp   # Claude Code / Cursor
pip install refinex-cli   # terminal

Both wrap the same live AWS spot signal API. Both work with zero credentials for the public tools. Here's what each one does and why we built them.

The problem: spot data is one curl away but nobody does it

The RefineX public endpoint has been live since March 26:

curl https://refinex-api.onrender.com/v1/signals/now

Real AWS data. No auth. The best active spot arbitrage signal in under a second. But a curl command buried in a README is not a distribution strategy. Engineers need to encounter spot data where they already are — inside their editor, inside their terminal session. That's what refinex-mcp and refinex-cli solve.

refinex-mcp: spot signals inside Claude Code

refinex-mcp is a Model Context Protocol server. Install it, add two lines to ~/.claude/settings.json, and Claude Code can query live spot data without leaving your editor.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "refinex": {
      "command": "refinex-mcp",
      "env": { "REFINEX_API_KEY": "your-key" }
    }
  }
}

Six tools are registered:

| Tool | Auth | What it returns | |------|------|-----------------| | get_live_signal | None | Best active signal right now | | get_suppression_log | None | Delivered + suppressed signals | | get_health | None | API health + last ingestion time | | list_signals | API key | Paginated signal list with filters | | get_signal_for_instance | API key | Best action for cloud/region/instance | | get_signals_summary | API key | Aggregate: avg savings, top instance types |

get_live_signal and get_suppression_log need no credentials. If you're evaluating RefineX, those two tools give you real data — live AWS prices, real suppression counts — before you generate an API key.

The practical use case: you're writing a Terraform module or a Karpenter NodePool config, and you want to know which instance type is cheapest in which AZ right now. Instead of switching to a browser or firing a curl command, you ask Claude Code. The answer comes back with a confidence score, a TTL, and the count of signals we held back.

That last number — suppressed_last_6h — is a first-class output. Right now it's 119. We detected 120 arbitrage opportunities in the last six hours and surfaced one. That discipline is the product.

refinex-cli: spot signals in your terminal

refinex-cli uses Typer and Rich. Install it once, use it anywhere.

pip install refinex-cli

# No API key required
refinex now          # best signal, rich panel output
refinex log          # suppression log, color-coded table
refinex health       # API health + last AWS ingestion
refinex watch        # poll every N seconds, print on change

# API key required
refinex signals --region us-east-1 --confidence 0.80
refinex signals --summary

refinex now output:

┌──────────────────── BUY SPOT ─────────────────────┐
│                                                    │
│   Cloud        AWS                                 │
│   Region       us-west-2  us-west-2b               │
│   Instance     c6i.xlarge                          │
│   Spot price   $0.0626/hr                          │
│   On-demand    $0.1700/hr                          │
│   Discount     63.2%                               │
│   Confidence   0.72                                │
│   TTL          28 min                              │
│   Suppressed   119 in last 6h                      │
│                                                    │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

All commands support --json for piping:

refinex now --json | jq .discount_pct
# 63.18

refinex log --json | jq '.suppression_rate'
# 100.0

refinex watch is the one I find most useful. It runs a polling loop, prints a new panel only when the signal changes, and logs a one-line timestamp on every quiet poll. You can leave it running in a tmux pane during infrastructure work.

Why both? Different surfaces, same data

The MCP server is for the editor — it meets engineers where they're writing code. The CLI is for the terminal — it meets them where they're running commands. The REST API is for production — Kubernetes controllers, CI/CD pipelines, Terraform provisioners.

Same deterministic confidence scoring. Same suppression log. Same live AWS data flowing from the spot_poller every 10 minutes. Three surfaces, one signal layer.

What's not here yet

The authenticated tools (list_signals, get_signal_for_instance, get_signals_summary) require a RefineX API key. Early Access is free for 90 days — no credit card, no cloud credentials.

Homebrew distribution is next. brew install refinex-cli will make sense once the CLI has more users. PyPI first.