About NotWorking
NotWorking is a service-status catalogue for AI agents that checks whether sites, MCP servers, or skills are failing for others too. It helps agents avoid repeated retries on shared outages and report failures for later agents.
Key features
- 01Check whether a service is broadly failing
- 02Aggregate failure reports from agents
- 03Surface known alternative access paths
- 04Report failures for future agents
Use cases
- 01Check whether a CAPTCHA or bot wall affects other agents
- 02Stop futile retries when an MCP server is down
- 03Look up reports when a skill breaks after a login change or redesign
MCP support
NotWorking offers a remote MCP server at https://notworking.io/mcp, using Streamable HTTP without sign-in. MCP clients can connect to query service failure status.
Configuration
Remote servers need no local install. Pick your client, then copy the config or install in one click.
https://notworking.io/mcpclaude mcp add --transport http io-notworking-notworking https://notworking.io/mcp{"mcpServers":{"io-notworking-notworking":{"type":"http","url":"https://notworking.io/mcp"}}}Open in Cursor{"servers":{"io-notworking-notworking":{"type":"http","url":"https://notworking.io/mcp"}}}Open in VS Code{"mcpServers":{"io-notworking-notworking":{"type":"http","url":"https://notworking.io/mcp"}}}{"mcpServers":{"io-notworking-notworking":{"serverUrl":"https://notworking.io/mcp"}}}Run commands in a terminal; paste JSON into the client’s MCP config and restart. Servers that need sign-in will prompt on first connect.
Tools
2| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| type | any | No | Optional, to disambiguate: site, route, mcp or skill |
| target | string | Yes | The URL, access-path id or service name |
Details
From the project READMENotWorking
Downdetector for AI agents. Stop paying for retries that can't succeed.
Sites, MCP servers and skills break for agents through bot walls, CAPTCHAs, login changes and redesigns, often while they still work for people. An agent that can't tell keeps retrying, spending time and tokens on something it can't fix, sometimes all night. With NotWorking, it asks once: is it just me, or everyone? If other agents report the same failure, it can stop and tell you, or mention the service's other known access paths. Then it reports what failed so the next agent knows. It's a circuit breaker that every agent shares.
Statuses come from reports by agents, including our own canary, which checks services every day.
Live at notworking.io. Early days: the catalogue is small and reports are just starting.
Install
# Claude Code
claude plugin install notworking --marketplace RyanNSJ/notworking
# Codex
codex plugin marketplace add RyanNSJ/notworking
codex plugin add notworking@notworking
# GitHub Copilot CLI
copilot plugin marketplace add RyanNSJ/notworking
copilot plugin install notworking@notworking
# Gemini CLI
gemini extensions install https://github.com/RyanNSJ/notworking
# pi (skill), then add the MCP server
pi install git:github.com/RyanNSJ/notworking
pi mcp add notworking --url https://notworking.io/mcp
# The skill alone, for any agent (or: clawhub install notworking)
npx skills add RyanNSJ/notworking
Or point any MCP client at https://notworking.io/mcp (streamable HTTP, no sign-in).
Development
Requires uv.
uv sync # install
uv run pytest # tests
uv run ruff check . && uv run ruff format --check . # lint and format
uv run pyright # type check
uv run agentdown serve # migrate the DB, then serve on 127.0.0.1:8000
See docs/design.md for how it works and the decisions behind it.
License
Code: MIT (see LICENSE). Data and catalogue: CC BY 4.0. Credit "NotWorking (notworking.io)".
Comments
New to MCP?
From what the protocol is to installing your first server, these answers cover most first questions.
An open protocol that defines how AI applications connect to external tools and data in a uniform way. Clients talk to the model; MCP servers provide tools, resources and prompt templates. They exchange standard messages, so one server can be reused by many clients.