launch-detector-mcp
See what a company is building before they announce it. Every website needs a TLS certificate, and every certificate is published in public certificate transparency logs, usually weeks before a new subdomain goes live. This MCP server reads those logs through crt.sh and surfaces new product-like subdomains, so Claude (or any MCP client) can tell you what a competitor might be about to launch.
No API keys. One line to install.
You: Anything new brewing at Linear?
Claude: [launch_signals(domain="linear.app", days=365)]
• "orbit" is the strongest new name: orbit.linear.app and *.orbit.linear.app
first got certificates on 2026-08-24. A wildcard under it suggests
something that hosts many sub-sites.
• "checkout" (2026-06-29) and "asks" (2026-02-10) are also new.
These are hints from certificate logs, not announcements.
Summarized from real tool output, 1 Oct 2026.
Why
| You want to know | Without it | With launch-detector |
|---|---|---|
| What a competitor is building | Wait for the press release | launch_signals ranks new product-like names |
| Whether a rumored product is real | Guess | new_subdomains shows the raw hostnames and dates |
| When a company got busy | Nothing | subdomain_timeline shows new hostnames per month |
| What changed across 5 rivals this month | Check each by hand | watch_domains gives one radar table |
How it works
flowchart LR
C[Claude / MCP client] -->|tool call| S[launch-detector-mcp]
S --> T[crt.sh: every certificate for *.domain]
T --> N[Hostnames with first/last seen dates]
N --> K["Stem: stt-a100.titanium.api.x.com → titanium<br/>drop regions, numbered nodes, mail/cdn/www"]
K --> R[Score: new + several hostnames + staging/beta/preview + product words]
R -->|ranked names with evidence| C
Staging, beta, preview and sandbox variants are kept as signals, not dropped: a product that gets a staging host first is often close to launch. Results are cached for a day on disk (~/.cache/launch-detector).
Install
Requires uv.
Claude Code
claude mcp add launch-detector -- uvx launch-detector-mcp
Claude Desktop / Cursor (claude_desktop_config.json / .cursor/mcp.json)
{
"mcpServers": {
"launch-detector": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": ["launch-detector-mcp"]
}
}
}
Tools
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
launch_signals |
New product-like names under a domain in the window, ranked, with the reasons and example hostnames |
new_subdomains |
Raw evidence: every hostname first seen in the window, with its name and environment words |
subdomain_timeline |
New hostnames per month and which product-like names appeared each month |
watch_domains |
Radar over 2–8 competitors: new hostnames and top signals per company |
hostname_history |
First/last certificate, count and issuers for one hostname |
Prompts: whats_coming (one company), competitor_radar (several companies).
Try these
- "What might Stripe launch next? Use the last 6 months."
- "Run a launch radar on openai.com, anthropic.com and mistral.ai for the last 30 days."
- "When did Linear's certificate activity spike this year?"
Limits (read these)
- Hints, not proof. A new hostname can be an internal tool, a test, a vendor integration or a renamed service.
- Companies that use wildcard certificates (
*.example.com) for everything reveal less. - crt.sh is a free community service: it is slow (20–60 s for big domains) and often busy; the server retries and caches, but sometimes you will need to try again.
- Only public certificate data is used. Please use it for market research, not to probe systems.
Part of the keyless MCP series
Open-source MCP servers that answer one market question each, with public data and no API keys.
| Server | Question it answers |
|---|---|
| review-miner-mcp | What do users hate about competitor apps and games? (App Store + Steam reviews) |
| pricing-time-machine-mcp | How did a SaaS pricing page change over the years? (Wayback Machine) |
| hn-hiring-trends-mcp | Which skills are tech companies hiring for, and which are rising? (HN Who is hiring) |
| model-price-radar-mcp | What does each LLM cost, and did it get cheaper? (OpenRouter + price history) |
| launch-detector-mcp (this one) | What is a company about to launch? (certificate transparency logs) |
Development
uv sync --extra dev
uv run pytest # offline tests with a mocked crt.sh
uv run python scripts/smoke_live.py # live check against crt.sh (a few minutes)
uv run --with rich python scripts/demo.py linear.app # terminal demo (vhs docs/demo.tape records the GIF)
MIT © Ali Altunar
Metadata
Release files for launch-detector-mcp 0.1.0
For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.
Source distribution (sdist)
| File | Size | Uploaded | |
|---|---|---|---|
| launch_detector_mcp-0.1.0.tar.gz | 181.5 kB | Details |
Built distribution (wheel)
| File | Interpreter | ABI | Platform | Reset |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| launch_detector_mcp-0.1.0-py3-none-any.whl | Python 3 | none | any | Details |
Total release size: 197.0 kB
Release files / launch_detector_mcp-0.1.0.tar.gz
| Download URL | launch_detector_mcp-0.1.0.tar.gz |
|---|---|
| Size | 181.5 kB |
| Tags | Source |
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Release files / launch_detector_mcp-0.1.0-py3-none-any.whl
| Download URL | launch_detector_mcp-0.1.0-py3-none-any.whl |
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| Size | 15.5 kB |
| Tags | Python 3 |
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