Folio № 006 — On launching the library carefully

Beta first.
Pricing later.

ShelfLayer is free in public beta while we learn with early users. Pro details will wait until the product earns them. Enterprise is for teams that need a custom MCP over private or specialized knowledge.

Edition I — Beta

Beta

For early users helping shape the shelf.

$ 0 during beta

Free while the public beta is open.

Public-domain ShelfLayer MCP
27,871 books and 20M+ passages indexed
Eight read-only MCP tools: search, fetch, shelves, books, sections, citations
Project Gutenberg / Gutendex source base
Founder-led feedback loop during launch
No payment card required
Best-effort beta availability

Connect ShelfLayer

Edition II — Later

Pro

For heavier public-catalog usage when the beta matures.

Coming soon

No price, quota, or feature lock-in yet.

Roadmap shaped by real beta usage
Likely for heavier public shelf workloads
MCP access remains the core product
Published only after the beta is useful enough
No launch price announced
No artificial scarcity for the beta

Use free beta first

Edition III — Private

Enterprise

Custom MCPs over knowledge you already own.

Scoped individually with your team.

Internal docs, company wiki, manuals, or PDFs
Country law, regulations, standards, or specialist corpora
Private isolated corpus and custom shelf taxonomy
Custom citations and retrieval behavior
Deployment, security, and retention review
Founder-led setup during beta

Beta access is free. Enterprise pilots are scoped individually.

Who this is for

Early readers we want.

During beta, the valuable thing is not a payment form. It is seeing where agents succeed, where search is still blunt, and which shelves people actually need.

No. 04772

Research agents

literature reviews, source checks, synthesis

Card No. 04772 Issued · MMXXVI

Good beta use case Search public-domain books, inspect sections, and cite passages without pretending the web is a library.

No. 04773

Builder agents

MCP hosts, coding agents, internal copilots

Card No. 04773 Issued · MMXXVI

Good beta use case Give an agent a tool for books, shelves, passages, and citations instead of another ad hoc scrape.

During beta, we care more about sharp feedback than payment. Connect the free edition and make the shelf better.

What the beta includes

Eight tools. One MCP.

Tool i. — Discover

list

shelves / books

Browse shelves and find books by title, author, year, language, or category.

Tool ii. — Search

find

passages

Keyword full-text search with quoted phrases, OR, required terms, and scopes.

Tool iii. — Read

open

sections

Inspect a book's table of contents, then read the exact section in order.

Tool iv. — Cite

cite

locators

Return structural citations suitable for user-facing answers and source checks.

The beta is monitored operationally on our side, not sold as passage bundles.

Editions, side by side

What each card opens.

Feature	Beta	Pro	Enterprise
Public Gutenberg catalog	✓	✓	Optional
MCP tools	Six	Six+	Custom
Private corpus	—	Later	✓
Authentication	Beta access	Planned accounts	Negotiated
Pricing	Free	Coming soon	Contact us
Support	Founder/community	Coming soon	Direct setup
Best fit	Early users	Heavier public use	Private knowledge

Questions at the front desk

Before you borrow.

Is the beta free? +

Yes. ShelfLayer is free during public beta while we learn with early users. There is no paid plan required to try the MCP.

Is Pro paid? +

Not yet. Pro is intentionally unpriced until beta usage tells us what is fair, useful, and worth maintaining.

Can I use it for free projects or Reddit demos? +

Yes. That is exactly the point of the beta. Use the public shelf, share what worked, and tell us where the librarian still gets lost.

Is this all of Project Gutenberg? +

No. The beta currently indexes 27,871 books sourced through Project Gutenberg and Gutendex. Gutenberg is larger, and we plan to expand carefully.

Do you store queries? +

During beta we keep operational logs for reliability, debugging, and abuse prevention. Enterprise customers can discuss isolation and retention directly.

Can you build a custom MCP over my own knowledge base? +

Yes. Enterprise is for internal docs, company wikis, manuals, a legal corpus, standards, or other private material that should become MCP-accessible.

Beta first.Pricing later.