StackSherpa
Intelligent API recommendation engine that silently picks the best APIs for your stack. Analyzes your project profile, compliance requirements, past decisions, and known issues to recommend the right provider for auth, payments, email, storage, and 25+ other categories.
Overview
stacksherpa
Intelligent API recommendation engine. 450+ providers across 28 categories — with pricing, known issues, compliance data, and live GitHub issue tracking.
Quick start
# 1. Install the CLI
npm install -g stacksherpa
# 2. Install the Claude Code skill (Claude will auto-consult stacksherpa when you need an API)
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/api-selection
curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/astein91/stacksherpa/main/skills/api-selection/SKILL.md \
-o ~/.claude/skills/api-selection/SKILL.md
# 3. Try it
stacksherpa providers email --pretty
No API keys needed. The catalog is a shared read-only database.
Browse the catalog
Visit stacksherpa.vercel.app to explore providers, compare options, and see pricing and known issues — no install required.
CLI usage
stacksherpa categories --pretty # List all 28 categories
stacksherpa providers email --pretty # All email providers + your profile
stacksherpa providers database --pretty # All database providers
stacksherpa provider stripe --pretty # Deep-dive on one provider
stacksherpa profile --pretty # View your project profile
stacksherpa profile --set '{"project.scale": "startup"}'
stacksherpa profile --set '{"constraints.compliance": ["SOC2"]}'
stacksherpa decide --api Resend --category email --outcome positive
stacksherpa report --id <decision-id> --success
stacksherpa projects list --pretty
All commands output JSON. Add --pretty for human-readable formatting.
Claude Code skill
The quick start installs the skill globally (~/.claude/skills/). You can also install per-project:
mkdir -p .claude/skills/api-selection
curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/astein91/stacksherpa/main/skills/api-selection/SKILL.md \
-o .claude/skills/api-selection/SKILL.md
Once installed, Claude will silently run stacksherpa providers <category> before suggesting any API integration. No slash command needed — the skill triggers automatically.
Alternative — no skill, just instructions: Add this to your project's CLAUDE.md:
## API Selection
When implementing features that require external APIs:
1. Run `stacksherpa providers <category>` via Bash before choosing a provider
2. Pick the best match based on the returned profile, pricing, and issues
3. After integration, run `stacksherpa decide --api X --category Y --outcome positive`
Categories (28)
| Group | Categories |
|---|---|
| Core | auth, database, storage, email, payments, analytics, monitoring, search |
| Messaging | sms, push, realtime, chat |
| AI | ai, ai-audio, ai-video, ai-image, vector-db |
| Infrastructure | cache, jobs, message-queue, hosting, cdn, feature-flags |
| Content & data | cms, media, maps, web-search, finance |
What each provider includes
- Description, website, docs URL, pricing URL
- Strengths (dx, reliability, cost, performance, support, security, customization)
- Best for (hobby / startup / growth / enterprise)
- Avoid if / best when (concrete conditions)
- Alternatives (linked provider IDs)
- Compliance certs (SOC2, HIPAA, GDPR, PCI-DSS, ISO27001)
- Ecosystem affinity (vercel, supabase, aws, cloudflare, etc.)
- Self-hostable flag
- Live pricing — scraped from provider websites
- Known issues — scraped from GitHub (reactions, severity, workarounds)
Project profile
Create .stacksherpa/profile.json in your project root to personalize recommendations:
{
"project": {
"name": "my-app",
"stack": { "language": "TypeScript", "framework": "Next.js", "hosting": "Vercel" },
"scale": "startup"
},
"constraints": {
"compliance": ["SOC2"],
"budgetCeiling": { "monthly": 100 }
},
"preferences": {
"prioritize": ["dx", "reliability"],
"avoidProviders": ["sendgrid"]
}
}
Global defaults in ~/.stacksherpa/defaults.json apply to all projects (local profiles override).
Data architecture
Turso (shared, read-only for CLI clients)
providers — 450+ providers with rich metadata
pricing — versioned pricing snapshots
known_issues — scraped from GitHub (reactions, severity)
discovery_log — audit trail of bootstrap runs
Local (~/.stacksherpa/)
defaults.json — global defaults across all projects
Local (<project>/.stacksherpa/)
profile.json — project constraints & preferences
decisions.json — API selection history
Your data never leaves your machine. The Turso catalog is read-only.
Keeping the catalog fresh
The catalog is maintained by an agentic pipeline — no manual data entry.
| Step | Schedule | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub issues | Every run | Scrapes issues with 2+ reactions from provider repos |
| Pricing | Every run | Re-scrapes up to 3 stale providers via Firecrawl |
| Discovery | 1st & 15th | Finds new providers via Exa search |
| Agent refresh | Daily (AI), Mondays (all) | Claude Haiku re-evaluates provider profiles with live web data |
| Bootstrap | 1st of month | Full agentic discovery across all 28 categories |
Provider review
npm run cron:review -- --list # See pending providers
npm run cron:review -- --approve pinecone qdrant # Approve specific ones
npm run cron:review -- --reject some-blog # Reject bad entries
Environment variables (for maintainers)
| Variable | Required for | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
TURSO_AUTH_TOKEN | All reads | Read-only Turso access |
TURSO_WRITE_TOKEN | Cron jobs | Write access for scrapers/agents |
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY | Agent refresh, bootstrap | Claude Haiku for agentic pipelines |
EXA_API_KEY | Bootstrap | Web search for provider discovery |
FIRECRAWL_API_KEY | Pricing, metadata | Website scraping |
GITHUB_TOKEN | Issue scraping | Higher rate limits for GitHub API |
Development
npm install
npm run build # Type-check
npm run dev -- providers email --pretty # Run CLI locally
npm test # Run tests
npm run cron:bootstrap -- --category jobs --dry-run # Bootstrap one category
npm run cron:agent-refresh -- --full # Full agent refresh
License
MIT
Server Config
{
"mcpServers": {
"stacksherpa": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"stacksherpa"
]
}
}
}Project Info
Created At
3 months agoUpdated At
3 months agoAuthor Name
astein91Star
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