Tool discovery for AI agents.
AI agents hallucinate package names. `need` gives them a verified index of 10,000+ CLI tools — and a closed feedback loop that gets smarter with every install.
## What happens
You ask Claude to "compress these PNGs". Claude doesn't have `pngquant` installed and doesn't know what the best tool is. But `need` is running as an MCP server in the background, so Claude automatically:
1. **Searches** need for "compress png images"
2. **Installs** the top result (`brew install pngquant`)
3. **Runs** it on your files
4. **Reports** that it worked — so the next agent's search ranks `pngquant` higher
You never interact with `need` directly. You just see the result.
```
search → install → use → report
↑ |
└────── rankings ────────┘
```
## Install
```bash
npm install -g @agentneeds/need
```
That's it. MCP servers are automatically configured for **Claude Code**, **Cursor**, and **Claude Desktop** on install. Your AI agent can immediately discover and install CLI tools without you doing anything.
Or try it now without installing: `npx @agentneeds/need "compress png images"`
## How agents use it
Under the hood, `need` exposes three MCP tools that agents call autonomously:
1. **`search_tools`** — semantic search across 10,000+ CLI tools
2. **`install_tool`** — install the best match (security allowlist: brew, apt, npm, pip, cargo only)
3. **`report_tool_usage`** — report success or failure, improving rankings for every future agent
No API keys. No accounts. No configuration. The agent handles the entire loop without leaving your editor.
## Works for humans too
`need` also works as a standalone CLI — semantic search that understands intent, not just keywords.
```bash
need convert pdf to png
need find duplicate files
need compress video without losing quality
```
## How it works
Queries are embedded with OpenAI's text-embedding-3-small and matched against a pgvector database of CLI tools. Results are ranked by semantic similarity combined with community success/failure signals from `report_tool_usage`.
## Browse tools
Explore all 10,000+ indexed tools at [agentneeds.dev](https://agentneeds.dev).
## Architecture
| Package | Description |
|---------|-------------|
| [`cli/`](./cli) | The `need` CLI and MCP server ([npm](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@agentneeds/need)) |
| [`api/`](./api) | Search API — Cloudflare Workers + Neon Postgres + pgvector |
| [`site/`](./site) | Marketing site and tool directory ([agentneeds.dev](https://agentneeds.dev)) |
## Contributing
```bash
git clone https://github.com/tuckerschreiber/need.git
cd need
npm install
cd cli && npm run build && npm test
```
## License
MIT