icantmarket-mcp

You shipped the thing and now it sits at zero users, because promoting it is a different job than building it. icantmarket is a verified help-exchange where technical founders trade that work with each other — and this server puts it in the tool you already have open, so asking for help doesn't cost you a context switch.

MCP server for icantmarket — a verified help-exchange for technical founders. Browse verified products, browse open asks, post structured asks, submit reviews — all from a Claude Code / Cursor / Claude Desktop / any MCP-aware client.

list_products → get_product → list_asks → get_ask → whoami
                                                         ↓
                                              post_ask · submit_review

Install

Works with any MCP-compliant client. The canonical run command is npx -y icantmarket-mcp over stdio, with ICANTMARKET_API_TOKEN exported in the env if you want the write tools.

Claude Code

bash

claude mcp add icantmarket --env ICANTMARKET_API_TOKEN=ic_xxx \
  -- npx -y icantmarket-mcp

OpenAI Codex CLI

Add to ~/.codex/config.toml:

toml

[mcp_servers.icantmarket]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "icantmarket-mcp"]
env = { ICANTMARKET_API_TOKEN = "ic_xxx" }

Cursor / Windsurf / Claude Desktop / Continue.dev / Zed / Cline

Same JSON shape for all of them. Drop into ~/.cursor/mcp.json, claude_desktop_config.json, ~/.continue/config.json, your Zed settings.json under context_servers, or wherever the client expects MCP server definitions:

json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "icantmarket": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "icantmarket-mcp"],
      "env": { "ICANTMARKET_API_TOKEN": "ic_xxx" }
    }
  }
}

MCPier

It's in the official catalog:

bash

pier install icantmarket-mcp

Get a token

Mint at icantmarket.com/me/api-tokens (sign in first). Token shape: ic_<24-byte hex>. Shown exactly once at creation — only the SHA-256 hash is stored server-side.

Reads (list_products, get_product, list_asks, get_ask) work without a token. Writes (whoami, post_ask, submit_review) need one.

Tools

Tool	Auth	What it does
`list_products`	none	Browse L1+ verified active products. Filter by `category`. Paginated.
`get_product`	none	One product by slug + count of open asks.
`list_asks`	none	Browse open public asks. Filter by `status`, `type`, `product_slug`.
`get_ask`	none	One public ask by UUID + product summary.
`whoami`	token	Sanity-check the token + return identity.
`post_ask`	token	Post a structured ask. Must own the product.
`submit_review`	token	Submit a substantive review on someone else's ask.

What this is for

When a maker says to their agent:

"Post an update ask for my YantrikDB Server v0.8.20 launch." → agent uses list_products to find the slug + UUID, then post_ask.
"Find me a launch ask in devtools I could review." → agent uses list_asks?type=launch and surfaces the results.
"Review the open ask on saga-mcp." → agent uses list_asks?product_slug=saga-mcp → get_ask → submit_review.

What this is NOT for

Not a freelance marketplace — no money changes hands; the exchange is peer review of work, not paid help.
Not for non-technical / consumer marketing — the cohort is technical founders shipping devtools, AI/ML, infra, or OSS libraries.
Not for bulk outreach / scraping — Review-to-Post + per-token rate limits make automation-as-spam unviable by design.
Not for anonymous posting — every ask is tied to a verified maker identity (GitHub repo admin, DNS TXT, or package provenance).
Not for post-launch ad placement — asks are pre-/at-launch help requests, not retrospective promo.

Anti-gaming the agent should know about

icantmarket runs the same anti-gaming surface on the API path that the browser path does:

Hype-word detector — revolutionary, game-changing, best-in-class, 10x, etc. on post_ask body fields trigger 422. Rewrite, or pass hype_acknowledged: true to override and accept the soft-flag.
Review-to-Post gate — second-and-onward asks need one credited Helpful/Completed review on someone else's ask first. post_ask returns 422 with the reason if blocked.
Self-review block — submit_review rejects reviewing one's own asks.
Content-fingerprint similarity — pasted boilerplate against your own prior reviews surfaces as a soft-flag.
Famous-name gate — claims on famous package/repo names (react, numpy, etc.) go through admin pending_review before they're posted to.
Per-token rate limits — 30/hr for posts and reviews.

If an agent gets repeatedly 422-blocked, the platform is telling it the submissions aren't substantive. Fix the content, not the path.

Voice constraint

The agent's post_ask and submit_review content should be:

factual, concrete, specific
no marketing voice (no "revolutionary", no "game-changing", no "10x")
offer_back should name something real you can give in return
success_criteria should be measurable — what does the helper's input actually let you do?

Configuration

Environment variables:

Variable	Required	Default	Purpose
`ICANTMARKET_API_TOKEN`	for writes	—	Bearer token from `/me/api-tokens`
`ICANTMARKET_BASE_URL`	no	`https://icantmarket.com/api/v1`	Override for staging / self-host

Source

Server: github.com/spranab/icantmarket-mcp
Platform: github.com/spranab/icantmarket (private — but the OpenAPI spec is public at /api/v1/openapi.json)
llms.txt: icantmarket.com/llms.txt

Other MCP servers and agent infrastructure by the same author:

saga-mcp — SQLite-backed project tracker for AI agents.
brainstorm-mcp — multi-model debate as an MCP tool.
yantrikdb-mcp — persistent cognitive memory for Claude Code, Cursor and Windsurf.
mcpier — self-hosted MCP control plane that keeps API keys off your clients.
truenas-mcp — 278 TrueNAS SCALE actions behind one hierarchical tool.