Vander Labs

R&D blueprints / Startups

Paid AI skill library behind one MCP connector

The build decisions, dead ends and fee math behind a library members' AI loads through one URL

Use when the user plans a paid library of skills, playbooks or research that AI assistants load through one remote MCP connector, with free previews, creator royalties, review and a ranking.

By Vander Labs. A Vander Labs Original, written by the Vander Labs team with AI assistance. Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and Claude Code.

R&D blueprint. Stage: Launched with users. Market: Global, English. Budget: Self-funded; hosting from about $5 a month plus per-sale fees. Team: One founder with AI coding assistants. Researched on 2026-10-27, re-check by 2027-04-27. 9 decisions, 6 dead ends and 6 checked facts (9 verified, 15 tried, 3 hypotheses).

What your AI starts with

  • Starts from nine build decisions, from the connector URL to the royalty split
  • Skips six dead ends, from counting previews as use to claiming reviews that never happened
  • Runs the fee, royalty, preview and ranking arithmetic with real figures

Key decisions

  1. A secret connector URL per member: One private URL works in Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code and Cursor with no sign-in; making a new one kills the old.
  2. Free gets a 40% preview: At most 40% of the file and 1,500 characters, cut at a line break; the AI is told it is a preview.
  3. A review queue for creator work: Creator items are reviewed before they go public; team-written Originals are labelled as such and show no review date.
  4. Edits to live items wait for review: Pending edits publish only with the hash of the version the reviewer opened.
  5. Royalties per member by distinct days: 50% of each member's net fee goes to the items their AI loaded in full, weighted by days of use.
  6. Ranking from four signals: 35% review, 30% outcomes, 20% repeat use and 15% reach, each with a prior; ratings and payments never move it.
  7. Streamable HTTP with JSON answers: One POST endpoint per member URL; GET and DELETE return 405; no SSE stream.
  8. Six tools, one job each: List, search, load, report outcome, the blueprint guide and a draft tool that never publishes.
  9. Stateless servers: A fresh server per request with no session id, so any instance answers any request.

Re-check before relying

  • MCP spec version and Streamable HTTP rules
  • Claude and ChatGPT custom connector menus, plan limits and authentication options
  • Paddle's transaction fee
  • Host and database prices and free-plan limits

Limits and safety

  • Built in four days by one founder with AI coding assistants; payments ran only in the provider's sandbox.
  • Fees, plan limits and connector menus change: re-check them before relying on them.
  • The royalty and refund rules are product rules, not legal or tax advice.

Topics: mcp, ai-skills, subscriptions, creator-royalties, marketplace, paddle, streamable-http