list_tools

Not every shadcn.io resource is installable. The site also hosts ~280 browser-only utility tools (bcrypt generator, JSON formatter, image converter, JWT debugger, …). list_tools lets agents recommend the right URL when a user describes a task.

When to use

• The user describes a one-off task ("I need to generate a bcrypt hash", "convert this PNG to WebP").
• You want the agent to return a URL the user can open in a browser rather than code to run.
• Building a "what utilities do you offer?" answer.

These are UIs, not code — the agent can't execute them for you, but pointing at the right tool saves a round trip through generic search.

How it works

Under the hood, this is a thin wrapper over search_items with tag locked to "tools":

1. Loads public/search-index.json (cached).
2. Filters rows where tag === "tools".
3. Optionally applies the query substring filter on title.
4. Early-breaks at limit.

Source: lib/mcp/tools.ts#list_tools + lib/mcp/content-loader.ts#filterItems.

Under the hood, the tools tag in the search index corresponds to files under content/tools/ — MDX pages for each utility.

Arguments

Response

{
  "count": 2,
  "items": [
    { "id": "/tools/bcrypt-hash-generator", "title": "Bcrypt Hash Generator", "url": "/tools/bcrypt-hash-generator", "tag": "tools" },
    { "id": "/tools/sha256-hash-generator", "title": "SHA-256 Hash Generator", "url": "/tools/sha256-hash-generator", "tag": "tools" }
  ]
}

Prepend the site origin to form a full URL: https://www.shadcn.io/tools/bcrypt-hash-generator.

Example prompts

use shadcnio and point me to a tool for generating a bcrypt hash

use shadcnio to list every image conversion tool

use shadcnio to show me what text utilities you have

Manual invocation

curl -s -X POST "https://www.shadcn.io/api/mcp?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "id": 1,
    "method": "tools/call",
    "params": {
      "name": "list_tools",
      "arguments": { "query": "hash", "limit": 20 }
    }
  }' | jq '.result.content[0].text | fromjson | .items'

Tips + gotchas

• Tools are browser-only — the agent can describe what a tool does and point at its URL, but it can't run it for you. For programmatic hashing/encoding, wire up a proper library.
• Not Pro-gated at the URL level — the utility pages themselves are free to visit. MCP is Pro-gated, so the only way to query them via the agent is with a valid Pro token, but sharing URLs publicly is fine.
• Equivalent to search_items({ type: "tools" }) — this tool exists mostly for discoverability. Agents noticing list_tools in the tools/list output realize they can recommend utilities at all.
• Default limit is high (200) — because the tools catalog is bounded (~280), agents usually get most of it in one call.