Use Tidemill with your AI agent

Tidemill ships a remote MCP server, a versioned REST API and a CLI so your own AI agent — Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or anything speaking MCP — can browse the tool catalogue and check a Pro license key. Tidemill has no accounts, so none of this needs a login or an API key: every tool below is public and read-only, and none of them can spend money. The only purchase path is Stripe Checkout on /pro, started by a human.

MCP server

Endpoint: POST https://tidemill.io/mcp (Streamable HTTP, JSON responses, no sessions, no authentication).

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http tidemill https://tidemill.io/mcp

claude.ai / Claude Desktop

Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → paste https://tidemill.io/mcp. No credentials to enter. Or add the same JSON a config-file client would use:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tidemill": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://tidemill.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Cursor

Add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json or .cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tidemill": {
      "url": "https://tidemill.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

ChatGPT / Codex

Codex CLI: codex mcp add tidemill --url https://tidemill.io/mcp, or add to config.toml:

[mcp_servers.tidemill]
url = "https://tidemill.io/mcp"

Responses API `mcp` tool:

{
  "model": "gpt-5",
  "tools": [{
    "type": "mcp",
    "server_label": "tidemill",
    "server_url": "https://tidemill.io/mcp",
    "require_approval": "never"
  }],
  "input": "What Tidemill tool measures real-world distance in a photo?"
}

ChatGPT's own connectors UI currently expects every custom connector to offer OAuth; a keyless public server like this one is reachable from Codex and the Responses API today, and from ChatGPT connectors once that requirement relaxes for open servers.

VS Code

Add to .vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "tidemill": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://tidemill.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Tools

Every tool the MCP server exposes, read straight from the running server's own catalogue:

Name	Read-only	Description
list_tools	yes	Every Tidemill tool: slug, title, category, description and what the optional one-time Pro purchase adds for it (proEdge). Every tool runs free in the browser; nothing here requires a purchase to use (isPro is always false — Pro only adds encrypted backup/restore on top).
get_tool	yes	One tool's full metadata by slug (from list_tools). Returns 'not found' for an unknown slug. Includes upgradeUrl (/pro) for anyone who wants Pro's encrypted backup — this tool never starts a purchase itself.
verify_license	yes	Checks whether a pasted Tidemill Pro license key is valid. Read-only: it only reports valid:true/false (optionally an error reason) and never returns the key's contents, mutates nothing, and cannot issue or revoke a key. Rate-limited more tightly than the other tools because it is a validity oracle for a value some callers may try to guess.
search	yes	Search Tidemill's tools and public pages. Returns connector-shaped results: id, title, url. Use fetch(id) for the full text of any result.
fetch	yes	Fetch the full record for a search() result id: id, title, text, url, metadata.

REST API

Documented at /openapi.json (OpenAPI 3.1). No authentication on any endpoint:

GET  /api/v1/tools
GET  /api/v1/tools/{slug}
POST /api/v1/license/verify  { "key": "tm_..." }

CLI

npx tidemill — zero dependencies, no login:

npx tidemill list-tools
npx tidemill get-tool strobe-tuner
npx tidemill verify-license tm_...
npx tidemill search "pitch tuner"

Add --json to any command for machine-readable output. Override the server with TIDEMILL_API_URL.

FAQ

Do I need an account or an API key to use Tidemill from an AI agent?

No. Tidemill has no accounts by design — every tool runs free in the browser — so there is nothing to authenticate. The MCP server, the REST API and the CLI are all public and read-only: no login, no key, no header to set.

Can an agent buy Tidemill Pro for me?

No. No MCP tool, API endpoint or CLI command can start a purchase. get_tool returns an upgradeUrl pointing at https://tidemill.io/pro, but actually buying Pro always happens through that page's own Stripe Checkout, started by you.

What can verify_license tell an agent?

Only whether a pasted license key is valid — true or false, plus a reason if it's invalid. It never returns the key's contents, never issues or revokes a key, and never looks anything up (there is nothing to look up: Tidemill has no account database).

Is anything rate-limited?

Yes, lightly, per IP address: the catalogue reads (list_tools / get_tool) at 120 requests/minute, and verify_license at 20/minute since it is a validity check some callers might try to guess against. Both limits are generous for normal agent use and documented in /docs/agents and the OpenAPI document.

Which MCP protocol versions does the server speak?

Both the current stateless revision (2026-07-28, with server/discover) and the earlier handshake revisions clients still use today (2025-03-26, 2025-06-18, 2025-11-25). Transport is Streamable HTTP with plain JSON responses; the endpoint is POST https://tidemill.io/mcp. There are no sessions to manage, and because there is no auth, there is also no 401 case.