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Guides
How to submit an MCP server to Anthropic's Claude directory
A directory listing puts your MCP server where Claude users already look. They add it from inside Claude in just a few clicks. For users, that means discovering connectors, including for tools they have never used, without leaving the conversation. For your business, it is a new acquisition channel. Claude can recommend your connector mid-conversation, at the moment a user’s task fits what you offer. A dashboard then shows how your server is used and how healthy it is.
Customize > Connectors in Claude, where you add MCP connectors.
Submission goes through a developer portal. This is our step-by-step guide to submitting, based on the servers we have taken through it for our clients.
Before you start the submission process
Check who can submit
You need a Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise account. On Team and Enterprise an Owner submits, and the listing belongs to that organization, so submit from the one that should own it long term.
Check what is accepted
The portal takes remote servers reachable over HTTPS, including MCP Apps. Local servers can no longer be listed on their own, so include them in a plugin and submit the plugin instead.
Get the server ready
Tool annotations. Every tool needs a title and a readOnlyHint or destructiveHint. Reviewers reject catch-all tools that mix reads and writes, so split them.
Authentication. Use OAuth 2.0 if your tools act on a user’s account, or none if they only serve public data.
An audit. We recommend running Alpic Beacon on your server URL first. It audits protocol conformance and tool metadata. For MCP Apps, the dashboard audit also opens the app in a real Claude conversation and checks that it renders.
A test run. Add the server to Claude as a custom connector under Customize > Connectors and call every tool from a chat. The portal asks you to confirm you did.
Prepare the listing
Listing materials. A documentation URL, a privacy policy URL, a support contact and an icon. A blog post or help-center article is enough for the documentation.
A reviewer account. Credentials for a fully populated account, with steps a stranger could follow.
Submit in the portal
Open the developer portal, select Submit new and choose MCP connector. The portal saves your progress in the browser and walks through ten steps.
Connection. Paste your https URL or pick the custom connector you tested.
Tools. They sync from your server, and any missing title or annotation is flagged. Fix those on the server, not in the portal.
Listing. Name, one-liner, description, categories, documentation and privacy URLs, support contact, icon and URL slug. The slug cannot change once you publish.
Use cases. What the connector is for, what users need before connecting, and whether it reads, writes or both.
Company. Your company name and website, plus a contact for review updates.
Authentication. Whether users sign in, and how.
Data handling. Whether the API is yours, proxied with permission, or a third party’s.
Test & launch. Access instructions for reviewers, and your confirmation that you ran every tool.
Compliance. Seven policy acknowledgments, all required.
Review and submit. A last read of everything you entered.
What happens after you submit
Anthropic scans every submission automatically. By default, a passing connector is listed as a Community connector: Anthropic has screened it but not reviewed it in depth, and the directory shows a Community label next to it.
Verified connectors, marked with a checkmark, got a closer review in which Anthropic tested each tool. You cannot apply for Verified. Anthropic assesses that itself.
Some submissions also get a review by a person. The status on your connector’s page tells you whose turn it is: In review means Anthropic is working on it, and Changes requested means the reviewer left feedback for you.
When the status is Approved, the listing is not live yet: open the connector in the developer portal and select Publish.
If nothing is waiting on you and you still need an answer, email mcp-review@anthropic.com to ask where your submission stands. Include your listing’s name, your organization and the status the portal shows, and copy your Anthropic account manager if you have one.
From submission to a live listing. Approval is not the end: publishing is your step, and a new listing carries the Community label.
Advice from the submissions we have run
Set the icon yourself
If the Listing step has no icon, Claude can fall back to the favicon of your server’s domain, which is the wrong brand when the server sits on a shared hosting domain. Add your own icon in the Listing step so your brand shows.
Write the use cases before you open the portal
Step four is where teams stall, because it asks for the scenarios the connector is built for, and those take longer to write than the form takes to fill.
Watch for the approval email
The listing stays unpublished until you select Publish, so approval alone changes nothing for users.
Get ready to submit with Alpic
Two Alpic tools take most of the work out of this. Beacon audits your server before you submit, so you fix what reviewers would reject while it is still easy to change. The submission helper then pre-fills the listing fields, so you paste them into the Claude directory wizard instead of writing them from scratch. Then skim Anthropic’s pre-submission checklist for what reviewers test, and you go into the portal with nothing left to guess. After approval, one step is still yours: select Publish.
