mcpier-catalog

Community catalog feeds for Pier — a self-hosted MCP control plane.

Pier subscribes to three sources out of the box:

Source	What	Authority
registry.modelcontextprotocol.io	The official MCP Registry — hundreds of MCPs, reverse-DNS namespaces	✓ registry (unforgeable per namespace)
mcpier-catalog	Curated starter set (this repo)	✓ curated (maintainer-reviewed in PR)
mcpier-community	Third-party vendor integrations (this repo)	✓ curated

Plus any git repo with a pier.yaml at its root installs via pier install-git <url>.

The two feeds in this repo

catalog.json — curated starter set (10 entries)

The happy path for someone new to Pier. Anthropic reference servers + author-maintained MCPs. Tight vetting. Every entry gets used regularly.

• filesystem, memory, sequential-thinking (Node reference)
• fetch, git, time (Python reference)
• playwright (Microsoft — browser automation)
• context7 (Upstash — live library docs)
• brainstorm-mcp (multi-model AI brainstorming)
• yantrikdb (persistent cognitive memory via SSE)

community.json — third-party vendor integrations (13 entries)

Platform vendors and common integrations. Looser curation — each vendor maintains their own MCP upstream; this feed points at them.

• SCM: github, gitlab
• Databases: postgres, sqlite
• Platforms: stripe, cloudflare, notion, sentry, figma, slack
• Maps + search: google-maps, brave-search
• Browsers: puppeteer

Both feeds are opt-in per subscription. Disable one without affecting the other from the UI's Sources panel.

Subscribe

Either file can be subscribed individually or both together:

# Both (Pier's default)
PIER_CATALOG_URLS="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spranab/mcpier-catalog/main/catalog.json,\
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spranab/mcpier-catalog/main/community.json"

Or run your own catalog — fork this repo, or build a catalog.json from scratch. No coordination required.

How entries resolve to installable MCPs

Each catalog entry is a lightweight pointer. The actual install formula (runtime, package, secrets, env) lives in one of two places:

1. Author-maintained pier.yaml in the MCP's own repo. See examples/pier.yaml (Node) and examples/pier-python.yaml (Python). This is the preferred pattern — MCP authors self-describe and updates land without a catalog PR.

2. Catalog-maintained formula in formulas/. Used when the upstream MCP hasn't adopted Pier yet (e.g. the official modelcontextprotocol/servers monorepo, where each sub-package doesn't ship its own pier.yaml). Points a catalog entry's formula_url at raw.githubusercontent.com/.../formulas/<name>.yaml.

Example catalog entry pointing at an author-maintained formula:

{
  "name": "brainstorm-mcp",
  "source": "github:spranab/brainstorm-mcp",
  "description": "Multi-model AI brainstorming — make GPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, and Claude debate in rounds.",
  "tags": ["ai", "llm", "node"],
  "homepage": "https://github.com/spranab/brainstorm-mcp",
  "verified": true
}

The "verified": true flag above is self-declared by this catalog — it means a maintainer reviewed the PR. For unforgeable authority, see the MCP Registry integration below.

Authority model

The "verified": true flag in this repo's entries is catalog-attested: someone with merge rights reviewed the PR. It's a soft trust signal tied to this catalog's reputation.

The MCP Registry at registry.modelcontextprotocol.io has a stronger trust primitive: reverse-DNS namespaces (com.stripe/mcp, io.github.<owner>/...) are proved via GitHub OAuth or DNS TXT records at publish time. That's what Pier shows as the green ✓ registry badge. Entries from this catalog show ✓ curated in amber — accurate about what they are.

Submit an MCP

If you're the MCP author:

1. Add a pier.yaml at your repo root (examples/pier.yaml).
2. Open a PR here adding an entry to catalog.json or community.json.
3. CI validates the JSON and checks your entry shape — see .github/workflows/validate.yml.
4. Once merged, any Pier instance refreshing its catalog picks it up.

If the upstream MCP isn't yours and doesn't have a pier.yaml:

1. Add a formula to formulas/ describing how to install it.
2. Add an entry with "formula_url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spranab/mcpier-catalog/main/formulas/<name>.yaml".
3. Same PR review + CI.

Repo layout

mcpier-catalog/
├── catalog.json          ← curated starter feed
├── community.json        ← third-party vendor feed
├── formulas/             ← catalog-maintained install formulas
│   ├── brainstorm-mcp.yaml
│   ├── mcp-server-time.yaml
│   └── ...
├── examples/             ← templates for MCP authors
│   ├── pier.yaml
│   └── pier-python.yaml
└── .github/workflows/
    └── validate.yml      ← CI validation on PRs

License

MIT.