API and MCP server

Codenation is a hand-reviewed index of 90 developer and SaaS tools in 8 categories, with 8 collections of tools that do the same job. Its catalog is open to AI assistants through a remote MCP server and to programs through a read-only HTTP API. Both are free and need no key and no account.

Quick start

MCP endpoint (Streamable HTTP): https://www.codenation.dev/api/mcp
OpenAPI 3 spec: https://www.codenation.dev/api/openapi.json
API base URL: https://www.codenation.dev/api/v1
MCP server card: https://www.codenation.dev/.well-known/mcp.json
Summary for language models: https://www.codenation.dev/llms.txt

In Claude Code, one command adds the server:

claude mcp add --transport http codenation https://www.codenation.dev/api/mcp

MCP server

The server speaks the Model Context Protocol over the Streamable HTTP transport at https://www.codenation.dev/api/mcp. It is stateless: every request is a JSON-RPC message sent with POST and answered in JSON, with no session id and no server-sent stream (a GET that asks for an event stream gets 405). Protocol versions: 2025-11-25, 2025-06-18, 2025-03-26, 2024-11-05.

It exposes six tools and two prompts. resources/list and prompts/list both answer; the server has no resources. Business errors, such as an unknown slug or an invalid submission, come back as a tool result with isError: true and a message that says what to change.

To check the endpoint by hand:

curl -s https://www.codenation.dev/api/mcp \
  -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":"curl","version":"1"}}}'

Connect a client

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http codenation https://www.codenation.dev/api/mcp

Claude Desktop and claude.ai

In Settings, Connectors, choose Add custom connector and paste https://www.codenation.dev/api/mcp. No OAuth client id or secret is needed. To use the configuration file instead (claude_desktop_config.json), bridge the remote server with mcp-remote, which needs Node.js:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "codenation": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-remote",
        "https://www.codenation.dev/api/mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Cursor

Add this to ~/.cursor/mcp.json, or to .cursor/mcp.json in a project:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "codenation": {
      "url": "https://www.codenation.dev/api/mcp"
    }
  }
}

VS Code

Add this to .vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "codenation": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://www.codenation.dev/api/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Other clients

Any client that supports remote MCP servers over Streamable HTTP works with the URL alone. There are no environment variables to set and no headers to add.

Tools

Five tools read the public catalog and change nothing. submit_tool writes one entry to the moderated review queue; it never publishes, edits or deletes a listing.

`search_tools` Search tools

Search the Codenation index of developer and SaaS tools. Every word of `query` must match the tool's name, tags, tagline, category or description; results are ranked by relevance. Filter by `category`, `tag` or `pricing`. Returns short records (slug, name, tagline, category, pricing, tags, website, codenation_url) and the total number of matches. Call get_tool with a slug for the full record and checked price. With no query, lists tools alphabetically.