# appindex

appindex is a small local bridge to the hosted
AppNiche MCP server, which exposes live App Store and
Google Play data. Search both stores across more than
twenty-five filters, pull one app's full record, read
its historical metrics and its listing-change
timeline, score keywords for difficulty and
opportunity, read app reviews, and list the supported
country codes — all from your agent, with no local
copy of the catalogue.

The bridge keeps no app data of its own. It serves
the upstream server's tool list locally, exactly as
captured from the live endpoint, and forwards each
tool call upstream, returning the result untouched.
A few tools state a per-call credit cost in their
descriptions; those credits are charged by the
upstream service against the caller's own
pre-existing AppNiche account. There is no tool here
that buys credits, creates an account, or mints a
key, and the bridge adds none.

## Tools

- `search_apps` — search App Store and Google Play
  apps across filters for store, category, games and
  game genres, language (including a
  `not_languages` localization-gap filter), price
  model, rating, review count, download and revenue
  estimates, release and update recency, and
  review-growth direction, sorted by any column.
  Every filter is optional.
- `get_app_detail` — return one app's full record.
  Required: `app_id` (a canonical id such as
  `"apple:284882215"` or `"google:com.spotify.music"`,
  a bare Apple track id, an Android package name, or
  a store URL).
- `get_app_historicals` — return historical metric
  points for one app, daily up to 90 days and weekly
  beyond. Required: `store_id`. Optional: `store`,
  `days`.
- `get_app_timeline` — return one app's listing
  change history, newest first: versions, icon and
  screenshot redesigns, price and business-model
  changes, renames, category moves, description
  rewrites and more, grouped by day. Required:
  `store_id`. Optional: `store`, `days`, `before`.
- `get_keyword_difficulty` — score one keyword for
  difficulty and opportunity on the App Store or
  Google Play. Required: `keyword`. Optional:
  `store`, `country`, `language`.
- `batch_keyword_difficulty` — score up to 10
  keywords in one call. Required: `keywords`.
  Optional: `store`, `country`, `language`.
- `get_app_reviews` — read app reviews: pass
  `app_id` for live store reviews of any app, or
  omit it to read the workspace's tracked apps with
  sentiment, topics and improvement areas attached.
  Every argument is optional.
- `get_supported_countries` — return the supported
  country codes. Takes no arguments.

## Configuration

- `APPNICHE_MCP_URL` (optional) — override the
  upstream endpoint. Defaults to
  `https://api.getappniche.com/mcp`. (The override
  hook is this rebuild's own labelled reconstruction.)
- `GETAPPNICHE_API_KEY` (optional) — when set, every
  upstream request carries an
  `Authorization: Bearer <key>` header, for the
  caller's own AppNiche key created in their
  AppNiche dashboard settings. When it is not set,
  no key header is sent. (The header name and the
  env name are pinned by the original's registry
  record; the Bearer scheme and this env forwarding
  are labelled reconstructions — the original
  surface was captured keyless.)

### Forwarding mechanics

On the first tool call the client opens a streamable
HTTP session with the upstream: a JSON-RPC
`initialize` request (protocolVersion `2025-03-26`,
clientInfo name `appindex`), then a
`notifications/initialized` notification, then the
`tools/call` request carrying the caller's arguments
unchanged. When the upstream answers `initialize`
with an `Mcp-Session-Id` header, that value rides on
every later request of the session, which is reused
for the life of the process. Replies may arrive as
plain JSON or as server-sent events; both are read.

Successful upstream results pass through verbatim,
including any `isError` flag the upstream sets.
Failures — a JSON-RPC error, a non-2xx status, an
unreadable response, or a request that cannot be
completed — come back as an `isError` result whose
text starts with `appindex error:` (this rendering
is this rebuild's own labelled reconstruction).

## CLI

Each tool is also a subcommand taking one JSON
argument string:

```bash
npx @reneturcios/appindex search_apps '{"search":"calorie tracker","store":"apple","limit":10}'
npx @reneturcios/appindex get_app_detail '{"app_id":"apple:284882215"}'
npx @reneturcios/appindex get_keyword_difficulty '{"keyword":"habit tracker"}'
npx @reneturcios/appindex get_supported_countries
npx @reneturcios/appindex --version
```

Exit codes: `0` on success, `1` on an `isError`
result, `2` on a usage error.

## MCP server

```bash
npx -y @reneturcios/appindex mcp
```

MCP client config:

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "appindex": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@reneturcios/appindex", "mcp"]
    }
  }
}
```

## Docker

```bash
docker run -i ghcr.io/cloudcorprecords/appindex
docker run --rm ghcr.io/cloudcorprecords/appindex --version
```

The container's default command is `mcp`, so the first
form is a stdio MCP server; any other arguments reach
the CLI normally.

## Development

```bash
npm install
npm run build
npm test
npm run dev
```

The test suite runs entirely against a stubbed
JSON-RPC upstream — no live network calls.

## License

MIT — see `LICENSE`.