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idea-reality-mcp

How to check if someone already built your app idea — automatically.

idea-reality-mcp is an MCP server that scans GitHub, npm, PyPI, Hacker News, and Stack Overflow to check if your startup idea already exists. It returns a 0–100 reality score with evidence, trend detection, and pivot suggestions — so your AI agent can decide whether to build, pivot, or kill the idea before writing any code.

When to use this: You're about to start a new project and want to know if similar tools already exist, how competitive the space is, and whether the market is growing or declining.

Project status (August 2026): Maintenance mode. The tool works, stays free & open source, and the hosted API remains up; bug reports are reviewed, but no new features are planned.

Not just checking — building it? After a reality check, open your idea as a public project on AngelRun — ship updates, climb the season, and get seen by angels.

How it works

1. Describe your idea in plain English — e.g. "a CLI tool that converts Figma designs to React components"
2. idea_check scans 5 databases in parallel (GitHub repos + stars, Hacker News discussions, npm/PyPI packages, Stack Overflow questions)
3. Get a 0–100 reality score with trend direction (accelerating/stable/declining), top competitors, and AI-generated pivot suggestions

What you get

You: "AI code review tool"

idea_check →
├── reality_signal: 92/100
├── trend: accelerating ↗
├── market_momentum: 73/100
├── GitHub repos: 847 (45% created in last 6 months)
├── Top competitor: reviewdog (9,094 ⭐)
├── npm packages: 56
├── HN discussions: 254 (trending up)
└── Verdict: HIGH — market is accelerating, find a niche fast

One score. Six sources. Trend detection. Your agent decides what to do next.

Try it in your browser — no install

Quick Start

# 1. Install
uvx idea-reality-mcp

# 2. Add to your agent
claude mcp add idea-reality -- uvx idea-reality-mcp   # Claude Code

3. Ask your agent: "Before I start building, check if this already exists: a CLI tool that converts Figma designs to React components"

That's it. The agent calls idea_check and returns: reality_signal, top competitors, and pivot suggestions.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "idea-reality": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["idea-reality-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

npx -y @smithery/cli install idea-reality-mcp --client claude

Setup & Configuration

First-time guided setup:

idea-reality setup

This walks you through:

1. Terms acceptance — data collection policy and disclaimer
2. Platform detection — auto-detects Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Cline
3. Config generation — prints the exact JSON snippet for your platform
4. Health check — verifies MCP server, tools, and scoring engine

Platform Configs

idea-reality config              # interactive menu
idea-reality config claude_code  # auto-installs via CLI
idea-reality config cursor       # prints Cursor config
idea-reality config raw_json     # generic MCP JSON

Supported: Claude Desktop · Claude Code · Cursor · Windsurf · Cline · Smithery · Docker

Health Check

idea-reality doctor        # core checks (~2s)
idea-reality doctor --full # + GitHub API, all 6 sources, Anthropic API

Usage

MCP tool call (any MCP-compatible agent):

{
  "tool": "idea_check",
  "arguments": {
    "idea_text": "a CLI tool that converts Figma designs to React components",
    "depth": "deep"
  }
}

REST API (no MCP required):

curl -X POST https://idea-reality-mcp.onrender.com/api/check \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"idea_text": "AI code review tool", "depth": "quick"}'

Python:

import httpx

resp = httpx.post("https://idea-reality-mcp.onrender.com/api/check", json={
    "idea_text": "AI code review tool",
    "depth": "deep"
})
print(resp.json()["reality_signal"])  # 0-100

Free. No API key required.

Why not just Google it?

Your AI agent never Googles anything before it starts building. idea_check runs inside your agent — it triggers automatically whether you remember or not.

Modes

Tool schema

idea_check

{
  "reality_signal": 72,
  "duplicate_likelihood": "high",
  "trend": "accelerating",
  "sub_scores": { "market_momentum": 73 },
  "evidence": [
    {"source": "github", "type": "repo_count", "query": "...", "count": 342},
    {"source": "github", "type": "max_stars", "query": "...", "count": 15000},
    {"source": "hackernews", "type": "mention_count", "query": "...", "count": 18},
    {"source": "npm", "type": "package_count", "query": "...", "count": 56},
    {"source": "pypi", "type": "package_count", "query": "...", "count": 23},
    {"source": "stackoverflow", "type": "question_count", "query": "...", "count": 120}
  ],
  "top_similars": [
    {"name": "user/repo", "url": "https://github.com/...", "stars": 15000, "description": "..."}
  ],
  "pivot_hints": [
    "High competition. Consider a niche differentiator...",
    "The leading project may have gaps in..."
  ]
}

CI: Auto-check on Pull Requests

Use idea-check-action to validate feature proposals:

name: Idea Reality Check
on:
  issues:
    types: [opened]

jobs:
  check:
    if: contains(github.event.issue.labels.*.name, 'proposal')
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: mnemox-ai/idea-check-action@v1
        with:
          idea: ${{ github.event.issue.title }}
          github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Optional config

export GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_...        # Higher GitHub API rate limits

PRODUCTHUNT_TOKEN no longer does anything — the source is disabled and ignores it. Setting it used to be worse than useless: it un-skipped a source whose query the API rejects, so it reported "0 competitors on Product Hunt" into 14% of the deep score.

Auto-trigger: Add one line to your CLAUDE.md, .cursorrules, or .github/copilot-instructions.md:

When starting a new project, use the idea_check MCP tool to check if similar projects already exist.

Roadmap

• v0.1 — GitHub + HN search, basic scoring
• v0.2 — Deep mode (npm, PyPI, Product Hunt), keyword extraction
• v0.3 — 3-stage keyword pipeline, Chinese term mappings, LLM-powered search
• v0.4 — Score History, Agent Templates, GitHub Action
• v0.5 — Temporal signals, trend detection, market momentum
• v0.6 — Onboarding CLI (idea-reality setup, config, doctor)

Star History

Found a blind spot?

If the tool missed obvious competitors or returned irrelevant results:

1. Open an issue with your idea text and the output
2. We'll improve the keyword extraction for your domain

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md (繁體中文).

License

MIT — see LICENSE

Built by Mnemox AI · dev@mnemox.ai