decrypt aes256 encrypted file without gpg-agent

[Fourhundred Thecat]

 > On 2020-06-28 16:07, Werner Koch wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Jun 2020 09:33, Fourhundred Thecat said:
>
>> How can I decrypt it without using gpg agent ?
>
> You can't the agent is a cornerstone of gpg and is thus required.

I thought the agent is for manipulating the private key.

But why do I need the agent, when no secret key is involved? I simply
want to decrypt a password-encrypted file. What possible useful role
would agent play?

Seems to me that this is a terrible design, that gpg is basically
unusable without agent. Why should I need some monstrosity running as
daemon, when I just want to decrypt file?

I remember a time, when gpg was a simple, cleanly design utility that
worked.

Imagine the maintainers of ls decided, that ls will no longer work,
unless ls-daemon is running.

What happened to this project?