Every marketplace has the same problem: sellers wont list until there are buyers, and buyers wont come until there are listings. MCP marketplaces have it worse because the buyers are AI agents, not humans.
The problem
I run marketnow.site — a marketplace for MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers. We have 8,845 skills indexed. All of them were auto-imported from GitHub repos.
Zero human-submitted skills.
Why? Because:
- Nobody knows we exist (1 GitHub star, 51 npm downloads/week)
- Sellers dont see buyers (no traffic = no reason to list)
- Buyers dont see sellers (no unique listings = no reason to visit)
- The MCP ecosystem is new (most devs dont know what MCP is yet)
This is the classic chicken-and-egg problem, but with AI agents as the buyers.
How we are solving it
1. Auto-import (supply side)
We built a massive indexer that scans GitHub for MCP servers (30+ search queries, 8,845 repos found). Every repo gets a 9-layer security audit automatically. No human action needed.
This gives us supply (8,845 skills) without needing sellers. But these arent curated — theyre whatever exists on GitHub.
2. MCP server as discovery channel (demand side)
Our npm package marketnow-mcp lets any AI agent (Claude, Cursor, Cline) search the marketplace directly from their runtime. When an agent needs a tool, it asks MarketNow instead of Googling.
This creates demand without needing human visitors. Agents are the buyers.
3. New: submit_skill tool (viral loop)
We just added a submit_skill tool to the MCP server. Now when an agent discovers MarketNow, it can submit its own skills:
Agent A searches MarketNow for a tool
Agent A finds a useful skill and installs it
Agent A realizes it has its own tools that others could use
Agent A calls submit_skill with its repo URL
MarketNow audits it (9 layers, free)
Agent As skill is now in the marketplace
Agent B discovers Agent As skill
The loop repeats
This is the viral mechanism. Every agent that uses MarketNow can also contribute to it.
4. New: recommend_skills tool
We added a recommend_skills tool that lets agents describe what they want to do and get matching skills:
Agent: I need to scrape a website
MarketNow: Here are 5 web scraping MCP servers. The top one has Sentinel score 8/10.
Agent: Installing it now.
This makes MarketNow useful immediately — no browsing needed.
5. New: verify_trust tool
Agents can verify each others identity using ATC (Agent Trust Card):
Agent A: Who are you?
Agent B: I am agent.example, here is my ATC: ATC-2026-9880252
Agent A: verify_trust(ATC-2026-9880252)
MarketNow: Valid. Sentinel score 10/10. Risk: low.
Agent A: OK, I trust you. Lets interact.
This creates a trust network where MarketNow is the CA (Certificate Authority).
The 8 tools now available
- search_skills — find skills by keyword
- get_skill — get full details
- list_categories — browse categories
- get_manifest — marketplace metadata
- get_install_command — get install command (all skills FREE)
- verify_trust — verify an Agent Trust Card
- submit_skill — submit your MCP server (FREE, 9-layer audit)
- recommend_skills — get AI-powered recommendations
What happens next
If 10 agents install marketnow-mcp and each submits 1 skill, we have 10 new human-submitted skills. If 100 agents do it, 100 skills. If 1000 agents do it, we have a real marketplace.
The key insight: we dont need human traffic. We need agent adoption. And agents adopt tools that are useful — MarketNow is useful because it has 8,845 skills + security audits + trust verification.
Try it
npm install marketnow-mcp (v1.5.0)
Add to your agent config:
{
mcpServers: {
marketnow: {
command: npx,
args: [-y, marketnow-mcp]
}
}
}
Then ask your agent: Find me a tool for scraping websites.
Live: https://marketnow.site
GitHub: https://github.com/edgarfloresguerra2011-a11y/marketnow
Edison Flores, AliceLabs LLC
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