A month ago I shipped aicraft-code-review — an open-source MCP server that reviews code locally (OWASP scanning, N+1 detection, style rules) for Claude Code, Cursor and Cline. I had $0 marketing budget and no audience.
One month later: 650+ PyPI installs, 12 Product Hunt followers, and listings in 5 directories — with more pending. Zero dollars spent. Here's the exact playbook, including what didn't work.
| Channel | Cost | Status | What it took |
|---|---|---|---|
| PyPI | |||
| $0 | ✅ 650+ installs | One afternoon: pyproject.toml , wheel build, twine upload |
|
| Smithery | |||
| $0 | ✅ Live | Deploy via their CLI, quality score 52/100 | |
| mcpservers.org | |||
| $0 | ✅ Approved in ~1 day | Simple submit form | |
| cursor.directory | |||
| $0 | ✅ Live | Submit plugin + MCP server + rule | |
| Product Hunt | |||
| $0 | ✅ Launched | Free launch, real user feedback | |
| Glama | |||
| $0 | ⏳ Reviewing | Submit + glama.json + Dockerfile |
|
| awesome-mcp-servers | |||
| $0 | ⏳ PR open | Needs Glama listing + badge first | |
| Docker MCP Registry | |||
| $0 | ⏳ PR open | Root Dockerfile , LICENSE , SECURITY.md |
|
| Official MCP Registry | |||
| $0 | ⏳ Next | ||
mcp-publisher publish from the PyPI package |
|||
| MCPFind / Cline marketplace | |||
| $0 | ⏳ PRs open | YAML metadata, waiting on maintainers | |
| Hacker News | |||
| $0 | ✅ 1 point | Honest "Show HN" style post | |
| Reddit r/mcp | |||
| $0 | ❌ Failed | See below |
1. Directory listings compound. Every listing adds an install path, a backlink, and social proof for the next directory. mcpservers.org approved me in a day; that listing made the cursor.directory submission stronger.
2. Product Hunt gave us the roadmap. We only got 3 upvotes — but two comments became our next release:
MCP_CODE_REVIEW_CONFIG
.mcp-code-review.yaml
auto-discoveryReal users telling you what to build beats any amount of guessing.
3. The awesome-mcp-servers repo is the prize. It has 92k stars and its README is how most people discover MCP servers. But the bar is real: your server must be listed on Glama with a quality score badge. Budget 2 weeks for review.
Reddit with a new account = spam filter. Both my r/mcp posts got silently removed. New accounts can't message mods either. Lesson: build karma in technical subreddits before you have something to promote.
HN is a lottery. One point, zero comments. Fine — the post is still a permanent backlink.
Paid directories come early. mcp.so wants $39. OpenTools is paid-only. Skip them at the start.
Two weeks after 0.1.0 shipped, mcp
2.0.0 dropped with a breaking API change — and fresh installs of my server crashed at import. I had pinned mcp>=1.6
without an upper bound.
If you ship a Python MCP server today: pin mcp>=1.6,<2 in your dependencies right now. The 0.1.1 release with the fix went out the same week.
Dockerfile
, LICENSE
, SECURITY.md
, glama.json
, install docs. Every directory asks for a subset of these.Next up: the official MCP Registry publish and the Glama badge. If you're building an MCP server, steal this list — and tell me which channel I'm missing.
aicraft-code-review is MIT-licensed and installs with pip install aicraft-code-review
.