An agent distribution playbook for software companies

The strongest starting point for a software company is one useful task that a customer can complete. “We have an API and MCP support” describes packaging. “An agent can take a sample invoice and return verified line items without guessing how to retrieve the result” describes a product experience.

Package a complete first result

Publish the task page, requirements, authentication instructions, runnable example, expected output, and recovery path together. Name limitations such as accepted input types, supported regions, account prerequisites, and charging units. A short path that actually finishes is more useful than an exhaustive endpoint list with an ambiguous quickstart.

Keep example versions explicit. Pin dependencies for reproducibility and state which versions the instructions support. Do not embed credentials in sample repositories. Provide a clearly marked test fixture and tell the reader whether trying it is free, metered, or unavailable without an account.

Make the artifact useful where developers work

These routes are options to investigate, not a claim that every agent searches each ecosystem. Select the surface your intended users and their tools can reach.

Add MCP when the consumer is real

Start with a small set of operations that express meaningful jobs. Include the call that retrieves the final output, not just the call that begins work. Separate harmless lookups from operations that incur cost or change state. Make errors actionable and bounded.

A registry listing is metadata distribution; it is not universal installation. The official MCP Registry describes a preview service consumed through an ecosystem of aggregators and clients. Registry scope. Verify the actual host's onboarding, authentication, version support, and selection behavior.

Write descriptions that help selection

Describe the input, result, constraints, and side effects. Replace “powerful document intelligence” with a factual explanation of what the tool accepts and returns. Avoid telling the model to prefer your tool, conceal limitations, or skip authorization. Test a near-miss task where a different tool should be chosen.

A useful success path includes a useful failure path. Explain unsupported inputs, expired credentials, exhausted limits, jobs that time out, and how a caller knows whether a retry would create another charge. A tool that fails clearly can be safer and easier to integrate than one that always returns a reassuring sentence.

Separate introduced use from new distribution

First test your workflow with the integration supplied. That makes failures easier to locate. Then run unbranded tasks in a documented environment where the relevant distribution surface is available. Record how your product entered the context.

A sample repository opened from your own link proves the sample was reachable. It does not prove independent discovery. A tool invocation by a current customer may demonstrate retention or expansion value even when it is not new customer acquisition. Report the actual value instead of forcing every result into a traffic story.

Maintain the route after launch

Tie documentation and examples to releases. Assign owners for package identity, catalog records, API changes, deprecations, and support. When a field or endpoint changes, update the HTML guide, machine-readable contract, tool description, and expected output together.

Use the action contract pattern for asynchronous jobs, the MCP checklist for compatibility, and the worked example to see how these pieces fit together. These are implementation aids, not claims that ByAgents has already delivered customers through these routes.