Field notes on AI-native SaaS.
How to ship MCP servers, embed in-product AI assistants, and monetize AI usage — written by the team building the platform.
- MCP education
We tested 25 "official" MCP servers for one-click OAuth. Ten failed.
A registration_endpoint in a provider's OAuth metadata isn't proof it accepts self-registration. Real testing against Intercom, Calendly, PostHog, Freshdesk and 21 other MCP servers found a charset bug and ten false positives — here's what broke and how we fixed the marketplace around it.
Sep 13, 2026 · 6 min - MCP education
MCP server pricing: what hosting costs, and the limits that keep it predictable
Hosted MCP pricing models compared (per-endpoint vs usage vs platform bundles), and the protection stack — rate limits with burst, monthly stop-loss caps, per-customer allowances — that makes agent traffic budgetable.
Jul 11, 2026 · 5 min - MCP education
MCP distribution: how customers actually find and connect your server
Shipping an MCP endpoint is step one — distribution is the channel: your own /use-from-AI page, directory listings, one-click install links, and the generative-engine surface that makes assistants recommend you.
Jul 11, 2026 · 4 min - MCP education
The MCP connect page is your new signup form — design it like one
How MCP clients discover auth (the four-RFC handshake: 9728, 8414, 7591, PKCE) and what belongs on the hosted connect screen your customers see: branding, minimal credential ask, live validation, privacy copy.
Jul 11, 2026 · 5 min - MCP education
MCP server analytics: what to measure when your customers' agents are the users
The four metric layers for production MCP servers — per-customer adoption, outcome-based reliability, per-tool health, protection headroom — plus the log schema and the two pitfalls that poison MCP dashboards.
Jul 11, 2026 · 5 min - MCP education
AI agents need different docs: writing MCP tool descriptions that don't hallucinate
Agents can't ask follow-ups — your MCP tool descriptions are their entire world. Seven rules (verb accuracy, enums verbatim, ID provenance, concrete return shapes) and the AI pipeline that scales them to 84 tools.
Jul 11, 2026 · 5 min - MCP education
Make your SaaS usable from Claude, Cursor and ChatGPT — with one MCP URL
The per-client playbook for shipping your product into AI assistants: Claude custom connectors, Cursor deep links and mcp.json, ChatGPT connectors — all from one spec-compliant MCP endpoint.
Jul 11, 2026 · 5 min - MCP education
Per-customer identity for MCP servers: the end of the shared API key
Shared API keys turn MCP servers into liability: no attribution, no selective revocation, silent authz bypass. The gateway pattern gives every customer their own credential — encrypted, forwarded per call, revocable.
Jul 11, 2026 · 5 min - MCP education
GraphQL to MCP: introspection, nullability landmines, and lean selection sets
Turning a GraphQL API into MCP tools: query/mutation→tool mapping, why greedy selection sets explode on non-nullable fields, per-customer credential forwarding, and verb-accurate descriptions.
Jul 11, 2026 · 6 min - MCP education
OpenAPI to MCP: the practical conversion guide
How to convert an OpenAPI spec into MCP tools that agents actually use well: operation→tool mapping, curation, read/write flags, agent-grade descriptions, and the gotchas that survive spec review.
Jul 11, 2026 · 6 min - MCP education
Why you shouldn't build your MCP server in-house (the 80/20 nobody scaffolds)
AI can scaffold an MCP server in an afternoon — but per-customer auth, OAuth 2.1, quotas, logs and real-client compatibility are the 80% you'd still be building months later. The honest build-vs-buy analysis.
Jul 11, 2026 · 6 min - MCP education
Cloudflare might be blocking your AI customers — the AI-bot trap for MCP servers
Cloudflare's AI-bot protections block legitimate Claude and ChatGPT traffic to APIs and MCP servers. How to spot edge blocking (zero server logs, OAuth passes, tool calls vanish) and fix it without disabling bot protection.
Jul 11, 2026 · 5 min - MCP education
The three bugs that break real MCP clients (found with Claude in production)
A 405-vs-401 handshake detail, a missing CORS header, and Cloudflare's AI-bot blocking: three production bugs that pass spec review but break Claude, Cursor and ChatGPT — with symptoms and fixes.
Jul 11, 2026 · 6 min - MCP education
Case study: AnnounceKit turned its GraphQL API into an 84-tool MCP in one afternoon
How AnnounceKit converted its GraphQL API into a hosted MCP server with 84 typed tools, per-customer authentication and usage analytics — live for Claude, Cursor and ChatGPT the same day.
Jul 11, 2026 · 7 min