mcpserver — agent-tools.cloud directory + MCP discovery

The server that powers agent-tools.cloud — an open, agent-readable directory of x402 paid APIs, MCP servers and A2A agents, probed daily, graded and safety-scanned, with a free MCP discovery endpoint and an A2A agent. Everything on the site (listings, daily statistics, scoring methodology, Blog) is available as JSON and through MCP tools.

Branches: main is an older public snapshot. The code that runs the site today, including everything described below, is on the directory-site branch.

Note (2026-05-25): the previously hosted paid Qwen3.6 relay and the paid vertical endpoints (signal / onchain / defi / portfolio) were retired after 30 days of zero external conversions. This repository now serves the directory site and the free MCP discovery server only.

What this serves today

Path	Auth	Purpose
`GET /` (host = `agent-tools.cloud`)	free	Directory site (search / browse)
`GET /api/v1/search`	free	Faceted service search
`POST /api/v1/ask`	free, rate-limited	LLM-ranked recommendations grounded in directory candidates
`GET /api/v1/services/{slug}`	free	Service card with payment, call and quality metadata
`GET /api/v1/categories`, `/api/v1/stats`	free	Directory facets and aggregate stats
`GET /stats`, `/stats.json`, `/stats/daily.csv`	free	Daily ecosystem statistics page, full snapshot and history (CC BY 4.0)
`GET /api/v1/stats/summary?view=all\|mcp\|x402\|a2a`	free	Compact daily digest for agents
`GET /api/v1/methodology`	free	How quality grades, readiness scores and statistics are computed
`GET /api/v1/blog`, `/api/v1/blog/{slug}`	free	Published Blog articles (list; full Markdown)
`GET /llms.txt`	free	Plain-text guide for LLM agents
`POST /api/v1/submit`	free, rate-limited	Pending service submission with dedupe
`POST /api/v1/keys`	free	Mint an API key (no signup) for account-scoped actions
`POST /api/v1/services/{slug}/paid-verifications`	API key	Sponsored paid verification: quote, then `/api/v1/paid-verifications/{id}/execute`
`POST /mcp-discovery/`	free	MCP streamable-http discovery server
`POST /a2a`	free	A2A JSON-RPC agent (0.3 `message/send` and 1.0 `SendMessage`): directory search, MCP safety scan, daily statistics
`GET /healthz`	free	Liveness
`GET /v1/models`	free	Upstream model listing (read-only)
`GET /.well-known/agent-tools.json`	free	Agent discovery manifest
`GET /.well-known/x402`	free	x402 v0.4 self-description (free-only)
`GET /.well-known/mcp.json`	free	MCP self-description

The MCP discovery server is also published as a standalone PyPI package: agent-tools-mcp (repo).

MCP discovery tools

search(intent, top_k=5, category=None, max_price_usd=None, has_mcp=None)
ask_services(intent, top_k=5, category=None, max_price_usd=None, use_llm=True)
get(slug)
list_categories()
stats()
directory_stats(view="all")
get_methodology()
list_articles(query="", tag="", page=1)
get_article(slug)
search_mcp_servers(intent, top_k=5, chain=None, require_healthy=False)
get_mcp_server(slug)
search_a2a_agents(intent, top_k=5, x402_only=False)
search_resources(intent, protocol=None, top_k=10)
scan_mcp_safety(endpoint_url, name="", description="", tools_text="")
register(url, name=None, description=None, mcp_url=None, category=None)
prepare_paid_verification(slug, payer, api_key=None)
execute_paid_verification(id, signature, api_key=None)
get_paid_verification(id, api_key=None)
claim_service_url(url, method=None)
verify_service_url(claim_id, token)
get_owned_listing(kind, slug)
edit_owned_listing(kind, slug, fields)

*_paid_verification (remote server only, not in the agent-tools-mcp package): pay a listed x402 service once from your own wallet and record the result. Needs an API key from POST /api/v1/keys. See /about#paid-verification.

search accepts natural-language intent and ranks by FTS5 + popularity + health. Each result carries a match_reason and a confidence score. ask_services uses the same retrieval-first / LLM-rerank flow as /api/v1/ask.

scan_mcp_safety vets an MCP server (by endpoint URL) for malware / prompt-injection lures before you connect: an already-indexed server returns our latest stored verdict, an unknown one is probed live, scanned, and added to the directory if it answered or you supplied metadata (documentation hosts such as example.com, *.test, *.invalid are scanned but never listed). The verdict comes from deterministic static rules (no code execution) over the server's advertised name + description + tool docs. Rules cover pipe-to-shell / base64-eval / PowerShell install cradles, bare-IP payload hosts, prompt-injection phrasing, and MCP tool-poisoning coercion — "always call this tool first", "before using any other tool you must…", hidden <IMPORTANT> instructions, "list all API keys / include secrets in your response", and coercion to read & forward .key/.pem/.ssh/.env files. Source-code-oriented rules (SQL/command/code injection) are intentionally not applied to natural-language descriptions to avoid false positives. Each live call also runs a frontier-LLM second opinion as an advisory dimension. It is also exposed as an A2A skill on POST /a2a. The hosted server carries the full tool set above; the stdio agent-tools-mcp PyPI package ships the core search tools only.

Deploy

Runs behind nginx as a systemd service (see deploy/).

cd <install-dir>
sudo git pull
sudo systemctl restart mcpserver

systemd units live in deploy/:

mcpserver.service — the ASGI app (uvicorn, 127.0.0.1:9100)
mcpserver-b.service — second instance on 127.0.0.1:9101; nginx upstream agent_tools_app uses both, so deploy with agent-tools-rolling-restart instead of systemctl restart mcpserver
agent-tools-crawl.{service,timer} — daily directory crawler at 00:30
agent-tools-health.{service,timer} — daily endpoint health checks at 05:30

Config

See .env.example. Required:

UPSTREAM_BASE_URL / UPSTREAM_API_KEY — used by /v1/models
AGENT_TOOLS_ASK_BASE_URL / AGENT_TOOLS_ASK_API_KEY / AGENT_TOOLS_ASK_MODEL — LLM backend for /api/v1/ask
AGENT_TOOLS_SAFETY_BASE_URL / AGENT_TOOLS_SAFETY_API_KEY / AGENT_TOOLS_SAFETY_MODEL — optional override for the scan_mcp_safety advisory LLM (falls back to the AGENT_TOOLS_ASK_* backend)
AGENT_TOOLS_DB_PATH — SQLite path for the directory
AGENT_TOOLS_ASK_RATE_LIMIT_PER_MINUTE / AGENT_TOOLS_ASK_RATE_LIMIT_PER_DAY — public ask abuse limits
METRICS_BEARER_TOKEN — optional remote access token for /metrics; without it metrics are local-only

Articles (optional)

Disabled by default. ARTICLES_ENABLED=1 enables /articles (list, detail, RSS, Markdown mirror), the author workspace /account/articles and editor review /admin/articles. Articles live in a separate SQLite file (ARTICLE_DB_PATH, default articles.db next to the main database); back it up with the SQLite backup API so the WAL is not lost.

Authors must hold at least one verified listing claim. The REST API (/api/v1/articles, /save, /submit, /cancel-submission, /preview, /media) accepts only Authorization: Bearer <api_key>.
Every submission is reviewed; only accounts in ARTICLE_EDITOR_IDS can publish. Public pages read the published version only.
Toolbar icons come from lucide-static 1.70.0 (licence kept in directory/article_assets/LICENSE).

Smoke test

# Liveness
curl https://agent-tools.cloud/healthz

# Directory stats
curl https://agent-tools.cloud/api/v1/stats

# Intent-level service recommendation
curl -s -X POST https://agent-tools.cloud/api/v1/ask \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"query":"find a weather API that accepts x402","limit":2}'

# Service card
curl https://agent-tools.cloud/api/v1/services/weather-hugen-tokyo-scan

# MCP discovery handshake
curl -s -X POST https://agent-tools.cloud/mcp-discovery/ \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -H 'accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"initialize",
       "params":{"protocolVersion":"2025-06-18","capabilities":{},
                 "clientInfo":{"name":"smoke","version":"1"}}}'

# Retired paid path -> 404
curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}\n' -X POST \
  https://agent-tools.cloud/v1/chat/completions \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"model":"Qwen/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B","messages":[{"role":"user","content":"hi"}]}'
# => 404

License

The agent-tools.cloud server and directory code in this repository is licensed under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0 — you may use, modify, and share it for any noncommercial purpose; commercial use is not permitted.

The standalone MCP client package in agent-tools-mcp/ (published to PyPI as agent-tools-mcp) is licensed separately under Apache-2.0, so any agent — including commercial ones — can install and call the hosted service freely.

Using the hosted service at agent-tools.cloud is governed by its terms of service, not this code license.

agent-tools-mcp

Documentation