Docs for agents

An Agent reads these docs through the docs MCP server, /llms.txt, /asks.json and each page's Markdown twin, all read-only and keyless. Acting on a Startup goes through the MCP server of api.sb instead.

ConnectCopy Anchor Link

claude mcp add --transport http startupbuilder-docs https://startupbuilder.dev/mcp

Any MCP client that speaks streamable HTTP connects to https://startupbuilder.dev/mcp. The server holds no session: each POST carries one JSON-RPC message, or a batch, and gets JSON back. A notification gets 202, and GET and DELETE get 405, since the server never pushes.

It answers protocol 2025-06-18, and 2025-03-26 or 2024-11-05 when a client asks for one.

initialize returns the server's instructions: use guides for what a founder asks, search for anything else, and fetch to read a page. Four rules follow, the same four that open /llms.txt and /asks.json:

1. Offer only guides whose status is `live` or `beta`; say a `planned` one is planned.
2. Match the founder's words in [/asks.json](/asks.json), then call the guide's Verbs in order, with the founder's own values in place of each input its `examples` names; `find:` reads the record first, `$N` is step N's result.
3. Ask at most the plan’s one question, and stop at every exit and approval the guide declares.
4. Read any page as Markdown at its URL plus `.md`, and cite its id.

ToolsCopy Anchor Link

Every result names a Markdown URL that fetch returns, so an agent searches, then reads.

• search ranks a task guide that holds every word of the query first. A System whose founder sentences hold them follows, then pages and headings.
• fetch takes a page id or a URL. An id names the record a page documents, such as noun:offer, verb:Offer.create, system:billing or guide:charge-monthly. Any other page is page: and its path, such as page:code/mcp.
• guides takes the founder's words and returns the closest guides, front shelf first among close matches.

Find the guide for a requestCopy Anchor Link

A founder says "retry the payments that failed", and the agent calls guides with those words:

{ "jsonrpc": "2.0", "id": 2, "method": "tools/call", "params": { "name": "guides", "arguments": { "phrase": "retry the payments that failed", "limit": 1 } } }

The first guide is retry-failed-payments, shortened here:

{
  "kind": "guide",
  "id": "retry-failed-payments",
  "title": "Retry the payments that failed",
  "status": "live",
  "shelf": "wakes",
  "program": ["Invoice.collect"],
  "needs": ["verb:Startup.claim", "guide:charge-monthly"],
  "approval": "mandate",
  "leaves": [],
  "wakesOn": { "event": "Invoice.overdue", "where": "a renewal payment failed", "first": true },
  "md": "/systems/finance/retry-failed-payments.md"
}

Each field tells the agent what to do:

• program lists the Verbs to call, in order. calls holds the same program as the founder's words, an MCP do call and API requests.
• needs lists what must exist first, each typed: another guide, a Verb, a Noun, a System, a Capability or a Process.
• approval says who says yes first: none, ask (the founder approves each run) or mandate (an agent acts within a standing Mandate and its Limit).
• leaves names each point where the founder leaves the chat: stripe-onboarding, registrar or oauth.
• shelf says when to offer it. A front guide belongs to the first 90 days of an idea-stage Startup. A wakes guide waits for its wakesOn Event in the Startup's own records, and a reference guide for the founder to ask.

/asks.json holds every public guide in this shape, plus each step's inputs, its plans per Lifecycle state, its follow-up asks and its calls. Its systems list adds what a founder says to reach each System, so a sentence with no guide still finds its System. /asks.txt is the same file as plain text.

An input naming a record an earlier step returns reads $1.$id, the $id step 1 returns, never a hard-coded id. The calls pass it on: offer.$id in the SDK and MCP, $OFFER read with jq in the API and CLI.

An input naming a record that exists before the guide runs reads find:: find:site is the Startup's own Site, and find:lead where status = new the first new Lead. The calls list it first, $.Site.list({ limit: 1 }), and pass its $id on. Any other id is a record the founder names, such as the Approval they ask about: read its id before the call.

Read any page as MarkdownCopy Anchor Link

Every page reads as Markdown at its URL plus .md: /business/nouns/offer is /business/nouns/offer.md, and the home page is /index.md. A request to the page's own URL with Accept: text/markdown gets the same twin.

A twin opens with the page's title, its URL, its id and its description, then its body with every generated table in place. A Verb's twin also says how to call it and, last, the Verbs that follow it in a guide. Each code window's tabs read as labelled blocks: Ask, API, SDK, CLI, MCP.

A URL with no page answers 404 in Markdown, with the closest pages listed.

A guide page's twin spells out each section: what it needs, what you get, the calls in each Interface, follow-up asks and what runs underneath. A block under the lead names who approves the run and where it leaves the chat.

Above its calls, the twin's agent block lists each Verb with every input it takes, its type and the guide's value. Then it shows what the last call returns and what to offer next.

/ids.json maps every page id to its URL, so an agent that holds system:billing reads /systems/billing.md without a search. An id outlives a move: it names the record, and the old URL answers with a 301 to the new one.

The site mapCopy Anchor Link

/llms.txt is the map, under 2,000 tokens. Its first lines say how to use this server, /asks.json and the twins, then give the four rules above. What StartupBuilder builds and where to start come next, then one section per header tab with that tab's core pages.

Its last section links each tab's full file, such as /code/llms.txt, and /llms-full.txt, every page in one file. It leaves out the generated operation and Event pages, which /openapi.json and /startup-builder.d.ts hold. An agent that writes code reads /openapi.json for the API and /startup-builder.d.ts for the SDK's types.

Cite and trust what you readCopy Anchor Link

Cite a page by its id, such as guide:charge-monthly, and quote the founder the sentence it holds. An answer that names its id lets the founder, or the next agent, read the same page.

Every page, /llms.txt, /asks.json and this server come from one build of one registry. A guide's Verbs, its status and its page therefore never disagree, and a guide that changes changes everywhere at once.

Every code block passes the example verifier before the site builds. Each SDK call, MCP program, CLI command and JSON body names only Verbs, fields and values the registry defines. An example copied from a page runs against api.sb.

What changed since your last read is in the Changelog.

NextCopy Anchor Link

• What you can ask for lists every System by the sentence that reaches it.
• Connect an agent to a Startup's own MCP server, which acts.
• Guides lists every task guide by the sentence a founder says.