MCP Discovery and Trust - Why We Need an App Store for AI Integrations
The MCP Discovery Problem
MCP (Model Context Protocol) solved the integration problem - AI agents can now talk to external tools through a standardized protocol. But it created a new problem: discovery. With 15 MCP servers configured, finding new useful ones means scrolling through GitHub repos, reading READMEs, and hoping someone on Twitter mentioned a good one.
Finding Servers Is Too Hard
There's no central registry of MCP servers that's actually useful. Community lists exist but they're incomplete, poorly categorized, and rarely indicate quality. You can't search "I need an MCP server for Figma" and get a ranked list of options with reviews and compatibility information.
The result is that most people stick with the handful of servers they already know about. The long tail of useful integrations goes undiscovered.
The Trust Problem Is Worse
Even when you find a new MCP server, how do you know it's safe? An MCP server can potentially access your file system, make network requests, and interact with other tools. Installing one from a random GitHub repo is a trust decision most people don't think carefully enough about.
There's no code signing, no sandboxing by default, no review process. You're running someone else's code on your machine with significant capabilities. This is the exact problem that app stores solved for mobile - and the MCP ecosystem needs a similar solution.
What an MCP App Store Looks Like
The solution is a curated registry with categories and search, user reviews and ratings, automated security scanning, sandboxing policies that limit what each server can access, and version management with update notifications.
Some projects are starting to tackle pieces of this. Configuration management tools help you organize your installed servers. But the full discovery-plus-trust pipeline doesn't exist yet.
Why This Matters for Desktop Agents
Desktop AI agents that rely on MCP for extensibility feel this pain most acutely. A macOS agent that can be extended with new capabilities via MCP servers is only as useful as the servers available to it. Better discovery and trust mechanisms unlock the full potential of the protocol.
Fazm is an open source macOS AI agent. Open source on GitHub.