Need has no known CVEs as of the latest MCPpedia security scan. It does not require authentication, so any local process can connect — keep this in mind in shared environments. Licensed under MIT.

How do I install Need?

Need supports copy-paste install configs on its MCPpedia page for Claude Desktop, Cursor, and Claude Code. Scroll to the Quick Install section and select your client.

Need provides 3 tools: search_tools, install_tool, report_tool_usage. See the full tools list on the server page for descriptions and parameters.

What AI clients work with Need?

Need is compatible with claude-desktop, cursor, claude-code. It uses stdio and sse transport.

Is Need actively maintained?

Need is less actively maintained — last commit was 104 days ago. It has 8 GitHub stars.

Need

Name: Need
Author: tuckerschreiber

@agentneeds/need · by tuckerschreiber

Discover the right CLI tool for any task — in plain English. MCP server for AI agents.

8 40/wk 3 tools GitHub npm

No known CVEs

MIT license

Maintained

Last commit 104d ago

Works with most clients

Transport: stdio, sse

3 tools · ~244 tok

Grade A · 0.1% of 200K ctx

Edit this pageView history

Developer Tools Search

Step 1

Install in your client

Config is the same across clients — only the file and path differ.

Supported in Claude Desktopstdio, sse · Node 18+

Paste into ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "need": {
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@agentneeds/need"
      ],
      "command": "npx"
    }
  }
}

Are you the author?

Add this badge to your README to show your security score and help users find safe servers.

Embed in your READMEAbout badges →

[![MCPpedia Score](https://mcppedia.org/api/badge/need)](https://mcppedia.org/s/need)

Read me

What Need does

AI agents hallucinate package names. need gives them a verified index of 10,000+ CLI tools — and a closed feedback loop that gets smarter with every install.

Test This Server

This server supports HTTP transport. Be the first to test it — help the community know if it works.

Loading README…

Scored, not listed

Why this score

Five weighted categories — click any category to see the underlying evidence.

Score breakdown

79/100across 5 weighted dimensions

How we score →

0255075100

−21

Security

Maintenance

Efficiency

Documentation

Compatibility

Categoriesclick a row to see evidence

Security

OSV.dev

No known CVEs.

Checked @agentneeds/need against OSV.dev.

Inventory

Tools (3)

Click any tool to inspect its schema.

~244 tokens total

Community

Reviews

Be the first to review

Have you used this server?

Share your experience — it helps other developers decide.

How easy was setup?Did it work reliably?How was the documentation?

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Need safe to use?: Need has no known CVEs as of the latest MCPpedia security scan. It does not require authentication, so any local process can connect — keep this in mind in shared environments. Licensed under MIT.
How do I install Need?: Need supports copy-paste install configs on its MCPpedia page for Claude Desktop, Cursor, and Claude Code. Scroll to the Quick Install section and select your client.
What can Need do?: Need provides 3 tools: search_tools, install_tool, report_tool_usage. See the full tools list on the server page for descriptions and parameters.
What AI clients work with Need?: Need is compatible with claude-desktop, cursor, claude-code. It uses stdio and sse transport.
Is Need actively maintained?: Need is less actively maintained — last commit was 104 days ago. It has 8 GitHub stars.

Similar servers

Others in developer-tools / search

View all →

Brave Search MCP Server98

Web and local search using Brave Search API

87.9k 2

XcodeBuildMCP97

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server and CLI that provides tools for agent use when working on iOS and macOS projects.

6.0k 2

XcodeBuildMCP97

XcodeBuildMCP provides tools for Xcode project management, simulator management, and app utilities.

6.0k 1

Context797

Context7 Platform -- Up-to-date code documentation for LLMs and AI code editors

58.3k 2

MCP Security Weekly

Get CVE alerts and security updates for Need and similar servers.

Community

Discussion

Start a conversation

Ask a question, share a tip, or report an issue.

Has anyone used this with Cursor?How do you handle auth?Any alternatives?

Edit this pageView history

Developer Tools Search

Step 1

Install in your client

Config is the same across clients — only the file and path differ.

Supported in Claude Desktopstdio, sse · Node 18+

Paste into ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "need": {
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@agentneeds/need"
      ],
      "command": "npx"
    }
  }
}

Are you the author?

Add this badge to your README to show your security score and help users find safe servers.

Embed in your READMEAbout badges →

[![MCPpedia Score](https://mcppedia.org/api/badge/need)](https://mcppedia.org/s/need)

Read me

What Need does

AI agents hallucinate package names. need gives them a verified index of 10,000+ CLI tools — and a closed feedback loop that gets smarter with every install.

Test This Server

This server supports HTTP transport. Be the first to test it — help the community know if it works.

README

Tool discovery for AI agents.

AI agents hallucinate package names. need gives them a verified index of 10,000+ CLI tools — and a closed feedback loop that gets smarter with every install.

What happens

You ask Claude to "compress these PNGs". Claude doesn't have pngquant installed and doesn't know what the best tool is. But need is running as an MCP server in the background, so Claude automatically:

Searches need for "compress png images"
Installs the top result (brew install pngquant)
Runs it on your files
Reports that it worked — so the next agent's search ranks pngquant higher

You never interact with need directly. You just see the result.

  search → install → use → report
    ↑                        |
    └────── rankings ────────┘

Install

npm install -g @agentneeds/need

That's it. MCP servers are automatically configured for Claude Code, Cursor, and Claude Desktop on install. Your AI agent can immediately discover and install CLI tools without you doing anything.

Or try it now without installing: npx @agentneeds/need "compress png images"

How agents use it

Under the hood, need exposes three MCP tools that agents call autonomously:

search_tools — semantic search across 10,000+ CLI tools
install_tool — install the best match (security allowlist: brew, apt, npm, pip, cargo only)
report_tool_usage — report success or failure, improving rankings for every future agent

No API keys. No accounts. No configuration. The agent handles the entire loop without leaving your editor.

Works for humans too

need also works as a standalone CLI — semantic search that understands intent, not just keywords.

need convert pdf to png
need find duplicate files
need compress video without losing quality

How it works

Queries are embedded with OpenAI's text-embedding-3-small and matched against a pgvector database of CLI tools. Results are ranked by semantic similarity combined with community success/failure signals from report_tool_usage.

Browse tools

Explore all 10,000+ indexed tools at agentneeds.dev.

Architecture

Package	Description
`cli/`	The `need` CLI and MCP server (npm)
`api/`	Search API — Cloudflare Workers + Neon Postgres + pgvector
`site/`	Marketing site and tool directory (agentneeds.dev)

Contributing

git clone https://github.com/tuckerschreiber/need.git
cd need
npm install
cd cli && npm run build && npm test

License

MIT

Loading README…

Scored, not listed

Why this score

Five weighted categories — click any category to see the underlying evidence.

Score breakdown

79/100across 5 weighted dimensions

How we score →

0255075100

−21

Security

Maintenance

Efficiency

Documentation

Compatibility

Categoriesclick a row to see evidence

Security

OSV.dev

No known CVEs.

Checked @agentneeds/need against OSV.dev.

Inventory

Tools (3)

Click any tool to inspect its schema.

~244 tokens total

Community

Reviews

Be the first to review

Have you used this server?

Share your experience — it helps other developers decide.

How easy was setup?Did it work reliably?How was the documentation?

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Need safe to use?: Need has no known CVEs as of the latest MCPpedia security scan. It does not require authentication, so any local process can connect — keep this in mind in shared environments. Licensed under MIT.
How do I install Need?: Need supports copy-paste install configs on its MCPpedia page for Claude Desktop, Cursor, and Claude Code. Scroll to the Quick Install section and select your client.
What can Need do?: Need provides 3 tools: search_tools, install_tool, report_tool_usage. See the full tools list on the server page for descriptions and parameters.
What AI clients work with Need?: Need is compatible with claude-desktop, cursor, claude-code. It uses stdio and sse transport.
Is Need actively maintained?: Need is less actively maintained — last commit was 104 days ago. It has 8 GitHub stars.