Frequently Asked Questions

Hive Market is a marketplace for MCP-compatible tools — integrations that give AI agents like Claude Desktop, Cursor, and Windsurf new capabilities. Think of it as an app store for AI agent tools. You can browse, connect, and review tools, or publish your own MCP servers for others to use.

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open protocol created by Anthropic that standardizes how AI applications connect to external tools and data sources. It uses JSON-RPC for communication and supports tools (actions the AI can take), resources (data the AI can read), and prompts (reusable instruction templates).

No. You can browse, search, and view all tools on Hive Market without an account. You only need an account to publish tools, leave reviews, or track your connected tools on your dashboard.

Browsing and connecting tools is completely free. Many tools on Hive Market are free and open source. Some creators offer paid tools with per-call or monthly pricing — these are clearly labeled on each tool's listing page.

Hive Market provides configuration snippets for Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, Codex, and OpenClaw. Any MCP-compatible client can use tools from the marketplace — you just need to know where your client stores its MCP configuration file.

Most MCP tools run locally on your machine via stdio transport. Your AI client starts the server as a local process and communicates over stdin/stdout — no data leaves your machine unless the tool explicitly makes network requests (e.g., a GitHub tool calling the GitHub API). Always check a tool's description and source code to understand what network calls it makes.

Tools installed via npx automatically use the latest version each time your AI client starts. If you've pinned a specific version in your config, update the version number in your MCP configuration file and restart your client.

Open your AI client's MCP configuration file (see the Connecting Tools page for the path), remove the server entry from the "mcpServers" object, save the file, and restart your client.

You need a Hive Market account and a working MCP server published to npm or hosted on GitHub. Go to the Publish page, fill out the four-step form (basic info, technical details, pricing, review), and submit. Your tool goes live immediately. See the Publishing guide for full details.

No. Hive Market is completely free to use — free to browse, free to publish. If you set a price on your tool (per-call or monthly), you keep 100% of your revenue. You handle your own billing and payments, just like any API provider.

Yes. Go to your Dashboard, find the tool you want to edit, and update its description, pricing, or technical details. Changes take effect immediately.

First, verify your JSON configuration is valid (no trailing commas, correct brackets). Make sure the config file is in the correct location for your OS and AI client. Fully quit and reopen your client — don't just close the window. Check that Node.js 18+ is installed and npx is available on your PATH. If the issue persists, try running the npx command manually in your terminal to see any error output. See the Connecting Tools page for detailed troubleshooting.