mcpship: check and publish MCP servers

mcpship

Check a remote MCP server against the Claude connector directory rules, then publish it: npm, the official MCP Registry, a Claude Code plugin repo and the Claude connector directory. One step at a time, for people and for agents.

Quick start

npx mcpship init https://example.com/mcp   # writes publish.json; fill in the fields
MCPSHIP_TOKEN=<access token or API key> npx mcpship check
npx mcpship next                            # the next step, with the exact command

Commands

Command	What it does
init <url>	Writes a publish.json template in the current folder
check [url]	Tests sign-in discovery, tools and listing; exit code 1 if a rule fails
packet	Writes docs/directory/submission.md: the text for each directory form step
next	The first unfinished step, with the command or click
status	Live state of npm, the MCP Registry, the plugin repo and the directory
done directory	Records that you submitted the directory form
mcp	Runs as a local MCP server over stdio

Add --json for machine-readable output and --dir <path> to point at another folder.

npm counts as published only when you are a maintainer of the package. mcpship asks npm whoami; if you publish with a token instead of npm login, set channels.npm.maintainer to your npm user name in publish.json.

What check tests

Rule	Fails when
auth.https	the server URL is not https
auth.www-authenticate	an unauthenticated call does not return 401 with resource_metadata
auth.resource-metadata	protected resource metadata is missing or has no authorization server
auth.as-metadata	authorization server metadata is missing
auth.pkce	S256 is not supported
auth.client-registration	neither Dynamic Client Registration nor Client ID Metadata Documents
tools.reachable	tools/list fails with the given token (skipped without one)
tools.title	a tool has no title
tools.annotations	a tool has neither readOnlyHint nor destructiveHint
tools.instructions	a description tells the model what to do ("use it first", "you must", "call X")
tools.hidden-text	a description holds invisible characters or encoded text
listing.icon-url	the icon URL is not a public https PNG
listing.pages	docs, privacy or terms page does not load
listing.lengths	name, one-liner or description is over the form limit, or a field is empty
listing.unpublished-mention	a page tells users to run npx <package> before it is on npm

Warnings: tools.mentions (a description names another tool) and listing.em-dash.

Use it from Claude Code

/plugin marketplace add emanueltns/mcpship
/plugin install mcpship@mcpship

Then ask Claude to publish your MCP server. The plugin adds the mcpship tools and a skill that walks through each step.

Privacy

mcpship runs on your machine. It calls your server, the URLs in your publish.json, the MCP Registry API, and whatever npm and gh call. It sends no telemetry. MCPSHIP_TOKEN is read from the environment and never printed.

License

MIT