MCP server and Skill

Let your AI assistant search MyAltBox directly: find alternatives to a product, compare open-source and self-hostable options, and submit new products, all from Claude, Cursor or any other client that supports MCP.

MyAltBox offers two ways in:

• MCP server: a remote server at https://myaltbox.com/api/mcp that gives your assistant structured tools.
• Skill: a short instruction file that teaches Claude when and how to use MyAltBox. It works on its own, and works better together with the MCP server.

Tools

Tool	What it does	Token needed
search_services	Search by keyword, filter by category, open source or self-hostable	No
get_service	Details of one product: description, license, pricing, platforms, features and write-up	No
get_alternatives	Community-recommended alternatives to a product, ordered by votes	No
list_categories	All categories and how many products each has	No
submit_service	Submit a new product with just its name and official website	Yes
add_alternative	Mark one product as an alternative to another	Yes

Every tool takes an optional locale (en, zh, ja or ko) and returns descriptions, categories and page links in that language.

Products you submit follow the same rules as the submit page: AI reads the official website and fills in the category, description and tags, and an admin reviews the product before it's published. Non-admin accounts can submit a limited number of products per day.

API token

The search tools work without an account. To submit products or add alternatives, create a personal API token below and send it as Authorization: Bearer <token>.

• The token is shown only once. Store it like a password.
• Revoke a token here at any time; clients using it lose write access immediately.

Connect your client

Claude Code

# Search tools only
claude mcp add --transport http myaltbox https://myaltbox.com/api/mcp

# With your token, available in every project
claude mcp add --transport http myaltbox https://myaltbox.com/api/mcp \
  --scope user --header "Authorization: Bearer mab_your_token"

Run /mcp inside Claude Code to check the connection.

To share the server with a project without committing your token, add it to .mcp.json and read the token from an environment variable:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "myaltbox": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://myaltbox.com/api/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ${MYALTBOX_TOKEN}" }
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop and claude.ai

Add a custom connector in Settings → Connectors and enter https://myaltbox.com/api/mcp. Custom connectors can't send a token header yet, so only the search tools are available there.

Cursor

Add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "myaltbox": {
      "url": "https://myaltbox.com/api/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer mab_your_token" }
    }
  }
}

VS Code

Add to .vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "myaltbox": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://myaltbox.com/api/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer mab_your_token" }
    }
  }
}

Other clients

Any client that supports the Streamable HTTP transport works: use https://myaltbox.com/api/mcp as the URL. Leave out the headers part if you only need the search tools.

Skill

The Skill tells Claude when MyAltBox is useful (for example "what can replace Notion?" or "self-hosted password managers") and how to present the results. It uses the MCP tools when they're connected, and the public search API otherwise.

Claude Code

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/myaltbox
curl -fsSL https://myaltbox.com/skills/myaltbox/SKILL.md -o ~/.claude/skills/myaltbox/SKILL.md

Claude loads it automatically when a question fits, or you can run /myaltbox.

Claude Desktop and claude.ai

Download myaltbox.zip and upload it in Settings → Capabilities → Skills.

You can read the Skill before installing it.

Example prompts

• "What are the best open-source alternatives to Notion that I can self-host?"
• "Compare Jellyfin and Plex using MyAltBox."
• "Find a free password manager that works on Linux and Android."
• "Add Zed (https://zed.dev) to MyAltBox as an alternative to Visual Studio Code."