Claude's Ecosystem + Building for Free
A complete map of what Claude can connect to - plus how to ship real applications at zero cost
Part 1: Claude's Built-In Ecosystem
Claude isn't just a chat interface. Through MCPs, Skills, and native tools, it can connect to almost anything. Here is a complete map of what is available - most of which you can enable in minutes.
Official Anthropic MCP Servers
Maintained by Anthropic, installed with a single npx command. Add each to ~/.claude/settings.json:
"filesystem": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem",
"/Users/you/Documents"]
}Read, write, and search files. Specify which directories Claude can access.
"github": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-github"],
"env": { "GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN": "$GITHUB_TOKEN" }
}Read repos, create issues/PRs, search code, list commits.
"postgres": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-postgres",
"postgresql://user:pass@localhost/mydb"]
}Query any PostgreSQL database. Works with Supabase, Neon, Railway, etc.
"brave-search": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-brave-search"],
"env": { "BRAVE_API_KEY": "$BRAVE_API_KEY" }
}Real-time web search. Free tier: 2,000 queries/month.
"notion": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-notion"],
"env": { "NOTION_API_TOKEN": "$NOTION_TOKEN" }
}Read and write Notion pages and databases.
"maps": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-google-maps"],
"env": { "GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY": "$MAPS_KEY" }
}Geocoding, directions, place search, distance matrix.
github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers - includes Slack, Puppeteer (browser automation), SQLite, Git, memory store, and more.Community MCP Servers
npx @wonderwhy-er/desktop-commander
npx @supabase/mcp-server-supabase --project-ref your-ref
npx @linear/mcp-server
npx stripe-mcp
npx @vercel/mcp-adapter
Skills: Specialised Expertise Packs
Skills give Claude deep, context-specific expertise for a domain. When you invoke a skill, Claude loads a full set of best practices, templates, and decision frameworks for that task type.
Native Claude Tools (No Setup Needed)
Part 2: Building Real Apps for Free
You now know how to work with Claude at an expert level. The modern free-tier stack lets you turn that into actual products at zero cost - until you have real users.
- Free: 100GB bandwidth/month, unlimited personal projects
- Auto-deploy on every Git push, preview URLs for every PR
- Serverless functions (API routes) and Cron jobs included
- Best for: Next.js, React, Vue, SvelteKit
- Free: 500MB database, 1GB file storage, 50K monthly active users
- PostgreSQL under the hood - full SQL, Row Level Security
- Built-in auth (email, OAuth: Google, GitHub, Apple)
- Real-time subscriptions and pgvector for AI embeddings
- Free: up to 10,000 monthly active users
- Beautiful pre-built sign-in/up UI, works with Next.js App Router
- Social logins, MFA, organisations - all on free tier
- Free: 3,000 emails/month, 100/day
- React Email for beautiful templates, simple REST API
- Free DNS for custom domains, Workers free: 100K requests/day
- R2 object storage free: 10GB/month
- No monthly fee - only pay per transaction (2.9% + 30c)
- Test mode completely free with no limits
- Subscriptions, one-time payments, invoicing all included
Worked Example: Feedback Collector App in 30 Minutes
A public form where users submit feedback, you view it in a dashboard, and you get an email notification. Cost: $0/month until thousands of users.
Step-by-Step Build with Claude
npx create-next-app@latest feedback-app --typescript --tailwind --app cd feedback-app
Go to supabase.com, create a free project, run this SQL in the editor:
create table feedback ( id uuid primary key default gen_random_uuid(), name text, email text, message text not null, created_at timestamptz default now() ); alter table feedback enable row level security; create policy "Anyone can submit" on feedback for insert with check (true); create policy "Auth users can read" on feedback for select using (auth.role() = 'authenticated');
Build a feedback form at /feedback: - Fields: name (optional), email (optional), message (required) - On submit: insert to Supabase table "feedback" - Use @supabase/supabase-js with env vars: NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL and NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY - Show a success message after submit - Clean Tailwind styling
Build a protected admin page at /admin: - Show all feedback entries (newest first) in a table - Use Supabase server client with env: SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY - Simple password protection via cookie - Columns: name, email, message, timestamp
Add API route /api/notify: - Called after each feedback submission - Sends email via Resend SDK to my@email.com - Subject: "New feedback from [name or Anonymous]" - Body: message + sender info - Env var: RESEND_API_KEY
vercel --prod # Or connect your GitHub repo at vercel.com → New Project # Add env vars in Vercel → Settings → Environment Variables
Live at a .vercel.app URL in under 2 minutes. Add a custom domain with Cloudflare DNS for free.
What You Can Build End-to-End
npm install @anthropic-ai/sdk). Claude builds Claude-powered apps for you.40+ Anthropic-maintained servers: filesystem, GitHub, PostgreSQL, Brave Search, Notion, Google Maps. Install via npx.
Desktop Commander, Supabase, Linear, Stripe, Vercel - community-built servers covering major tools.
Reusable expertise packs for Data, Docs, Sales, Engineering, Marketing, Finance, Legal, Bio Research. Build your own via Lesson 24.
Vercel (hosting) + Supabase (DB+auth) + Resend (email) + Stripe (payments) = $0/month until real scale.
500MB database, 50K MAU, real-time, Row Level Security, pgvector for AI embeddings. No credit card needed.
100GB bandwidth, unlimited projects, auto-deploy from Git, preview URLs, Cron jobs. Best for Next.js.