Hooklayer MCP

Viral-content intelligence for AI agents. Drop the Hooklayer MCP server into Claude Desktop, Cursor, n8n, or any HTTP MCP client and your agent gets 12 tools for short-form content across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube: analyze creators, search videos by keyword, find viral templates and rising trends, score and rewrite hooks, remix viral videos, match a creator's voice, predict a draft's virality, turn a brand brief into a shoot-ready creative blueprint, and monitor creators over time with saved watches and historical snapshots.

12 tools · structured JSON · non-destructive creator monitoring · no external social-platform edits or deletes

v1.1.0 (2026-05-14): The evidence layer ships. Every score includes signals[] with cited evidence, a would_fail_because counterfactual, and a quality health field. predict_virality runs an independent adversarial check. analyze_account.recommended_chain steps now expose confidence, cost, action_class (authority taxonomy), and expected_output. See CHANGELOG.md for the full ship.

🚀 Quick install

Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop doesn't natively support remote HTTP MCP servers — it needs the mcp-remote bridge. Two ways to install:

Option 1 — Custom Connector (easiest, no config file edit)

In Claude's web/desktop UI: Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → paste this URL:

https://hooklayer.dev/api/mcp

Claude.ai will walk you through OAuth (no manual key paste). Done.

Option 2 — Direct config (for power users who want hl_live_ key auth)

Edit claude_desktop_config.json:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hooklayer": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-remote@0.1.38",
        "https://hooklayer.dev/api/mcp",
        "--header",
        "Authorization:Bearer hl_live_..."
      ]
    }
  }
}

Get your free hl_live_ key at https://hooklayer.dev/auth/signup — 100 lifetime credits, no card required.

Restart Claude Desktop. The 12 Hooklayer tools appear in the 🔌 connector list.

Cursor

~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hooklayer": {
      "url": "https://hooklayer.dev/api/mcp",
      "transport": "http",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer hl_live_..."
      }
    }
  }
}

n8n

In your workflow, add an MCP Client node and configure as a remote HTTP MCP server:

• URL: https://hooklayer.dev/api/mcp
• Transport: HTTP
• Header: Authorization: Bearer hl_live_...

All 12 tools appear in the node's "Tool" dropdown.

OAuth 2.1 + PKCE (for Claude.ai connector + custom apps)

Hooklayer is fully OAuth 2.1 compliant — discovery, Dynamic Client Registration, PKCE, refresh token rotation. MCP clients that prefer OAuth over API keys work out of the box.

Discovery endpoints (no auth required, machine-readable):

# Authorization server metadata (RFC 8414)
curl https://hooklayer.dev/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server

# Protected resource metadata (RFC 9728)
curl https://hooklayer.dev/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource

Dynamic Client Registration (create a client without a manual signup form):

curl -X POST https://hooklayer.dev/oauth/register \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "client_name": "Your MCP client",
    "redirect_uris": ["https://yourapp.com/oauth/callback"]
  }'
# Returns: client_id, client_secret (for confidential clients)

Hitting tools/call without auth returns 401 plus a WWW-Authenticate header pointing at the resource metadata — Claude.ai, Cursor, and other MCP clients use this to auto-discover the OAuth flow.

Other clients

Any HTTP MCP client. Protocol negotiates 2024-11-05 (broadest compat) or 2025-06-18 (Streamable HTTP + structuredContent).

# Quick test — initialize handshake works without auth:
curl -X POST https://hooklayer.dev/api/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"initialize"}'

🧠 The 12 tools

Full schemas + curl examples: https://hooklayer.dev/docs

💡 Suggested follow-ups

analyze_account returns a recommended_chain field: plain data listing related tools, example parameters, and the reason each might be useful next. It is advisory only — the agent and user decide whether to act on it:

{
  "viral_dna_score": 87,
  "steal_map": [...],
  "recommended_chain": [
    {
      "tool": "match_voice",
      "params": {
        "draft": "<<<USER_DRAFT>>>",
        "reference_samples": ["https://tiktok.com/...", "...", "..."]
      },
      "reason": "High-signal voice DNA — consistent across top 5 videos"
    },
    {
      "tool": "trend_pulse",
      "params": { "niche": "challenge_videos" },
      "reason": "Verify their formula maps to current trends"
    },
    {
      "tool": "viral_remix",
      "params": { "source_url": "https://tiktok.com/..." },
      "reason": "Their #2 video has the highest copyable structure"
    }
  ]
}

These entries are informational data, not instructions. Each tool still requires explicit invocation — nothing runs automatically without agent/user consent.

📦 Examples

• examples/typescript-example.ts — TypeScript usage via the MCP SDK
• examples/python-example.py — Python usage via anthropic-mcp client
• examples/curl-test.sh — Raw curl tests for every endpoint

💵 Pricing

• Free — 100 lifetime credits at signup, no card
• Starter — $49/month, 5,000 credits, 60 req/min
• Pro — $149/month, 25,000 credits, 300 req/min, brand voice memory
• Agency — $499/month, 150,000 credits, 1,000 req/min, white-label, 10 seats
• Pay-as-you-go — $25 for 5,000 credits, never expire

Full pricing: https://hooklayer.dev/pricing

🛠 Architecture

Hosted MCP server (no stdio install needed):

Your agent (Claude/Cursor/n8n)
        │
        │  JSON-RPC 2.0 over HTTP
        ▼
https://hooklayer.dev/api/mcp
        │
        ├── initialize / ping / tools/list  (no auth)
        └── tools/call                       (Bearer hl_live_*)
                │
                └── Routes internally to /v1/* REST endpoints
                    100K+ analyzed viral videos
                    ScrapeCreators + Whisper + Sonnet pipeline

Source code for the hosted server lives at hooklayer.dev (closed source — the analysis pipeline is the moat). This repo holds the public client docs, examples, and config snippets.

📚 Links

• Install page: https://hooklayer.dev/mcp
• Full docs: https://hooklayer.dev/docs
• Playground (no signup): https://hooklayer.dev/playground
• Pricing: https://hooklayer.dev/pricing
• OAuth metadata: /.well-known/oauth-authorization-server
• Issues + bug reports: GitHub Issues

🔒 Security