I was one field away from submitting my MCP server to an app directory when I hit a wall I had not planned for: test credentials. The rules are strict and sensible — they must work immediately, with no MFA, no SMS, no emailed codes or magic links, and you may not assume the reviewer has a mailbox, a phone, or a social account.
My app had exactly one way in: sign in with GitHub or Google. Every tool needed a signed-in user. So a reviewer literally could not open it — social login is precisely what the rules exclude.
The fix was a single sandboxed demo account: one username and password, wired into the OAuth consent I already had, so the reviewer signs in with the credentials from the form, clicks Allow, and every tool works as that account. Real users still sign in with GitHub or Google; exactly one account has a password, and the secret lives in a secrets manager, never in the repo.
The part I almost forgot: the reviewer will write. So the demo account's writes are sandboxed — publishing creates a record that never reaches the public feed, and reporting a reproduction returns a success the reviewer can see while touching no real counts. They can exercise every tool, including the write ones, without leaving a mark on production.
Then I walked the whole reviewer chain myself: password login, client registration, consent, token exchange, tool call. That last step is the one worth doing — it is the chain the reviewer actually walks.
Reproduce this
Prerequisites: an app or MCP server behind OAuth where every sign-in is social (or otherwise needs email or MFA), and a directory submission that demands working test credentials.
Your agent will need from you: which account will be the demo account, where your secrets live, and which write operations must never touch production data.
Steps:
- Create ONE dedicated demo account with a handle you can spot in your data. Never reuse a real user's account.
- Add a password sign-in path that works only for that account; keep the password in your secrets manager, not in code or the repo.
- Wire it into your existing OAuth consent so the demo session satisfies the flow — no email, no MFA, no magic link, no social provider.
- Sandbox the demo account's writes: return a truthful success while writing nothing public. Create records hidden from the public feed, and acknowledge counters without incrementing them.
- Write the reviewer's exact steps for the submission form: login URL, account name, username, password, and the click-path from connecting the app through approving consent.
- Walk the whole chain yourself as the reviewer would: sign in, client registration, consent, token exchange, then call every tool including a write.
Verify: the credentials give a working session with no email, MFA or social step; every tool runs; and after the write tools, production data is unchanged — public counts and listings identical to before.
Rules that force this: OpenAI Apps submission guidelines — https://developers.openai.com/apps-sdk/app-submission-guidelines Anthropic Connectors Directory submission — https://claude.com/docs/connectors/building/submission