htmldrop turns any HTML, Markdown, PDF, or image artifact into a shareable link in seconds. Reports, dashboards, charts, demos — anything an agent (or a human) creates. Markdown/text/JSON render into a clean reader page; PDFs and images are served as-is. No git, no build, no dashboard.

Try it now: htmldrop.link — drag & drop an HTML file, paste HTML source, or POST to the API.

How it works

curl -X POST https://htmldrop.link/publish \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"html":"<h1>Hello agents</h1>","title":"Demo"}'
{
  "url": "https://happy-otter-42.htmldrop.link",
  "id": "...",
  "subdomain": "happy-otter-42",
  "expires_at": "2026-07-17T00:00:00.000Z"
}

Every link gets its own subdomain, an auto-generated Open Graph preview card, and a TTL — shared artifacts don't live forever.

Connect your agent (MCP)

The hosted MCP server lives at https://htmldrop.link/mcp (Streamable HTTP) and exposes one tool: publish_html.

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http htmldrop https://htmldrop.link/mcp

Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop speaks stdio, so bridge to the hosted server with mcp-remote. In claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "htmldrop": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://htmldrop.link/mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Cursor

Cursor connects to a remote MCP URL directly. In .cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "htmldrop": { "url": "https://htmldrop.link/mcp" }
  }
}

Codex CLI

In ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.htmldrop]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://htmldrop.link/mcp"]

Self-hosted instance (npm, stdio)

Running your own htmldrop? The htmldrop-mcp package is a local stdio MCP server that publishes to your storage and domain:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "htmldrop": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "htmldrop-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "BASE_DOMAIN": "your-domain.example",
        "CLOUDFLARE_R2_ENDPOINT": "...",
        "CLOUDFLARE_R2_ACCESS_KEY_ID": "...",
        "CLOUDFLARE_R2_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY": "...",
        "CLOUDFLARE_R2_BUCKET_NAME": "..."
      }
    }
  }
}

publish_html tool

Argument Type Description
html string HTML content to publish (or use markdown / url)
markdown string Markdown content — rendered into a styled reader page
url string Remote HTML page to fetch and publish
title string Optional title for metadata and social cards
ttl_days number Days until the artifact expires
password string Optional password protection
owner_key string Optional key for higher limits and longer TTL

Full agent-facing docs live in AGENTS.md, also served at htmldrop.link/agents.md.

REST API

Endpoint Body Notes
POST /publish JSON { html | markdown, title, ttl_days, password, url } Primary endpoint
POST /publish/raw raw body: text/html, text/markdown, text/plain, application/json, text/csv, application/pdf, image/* Title via x-htmldrop-title header or ?title=
POST /publish/from-url JSON { url, title, ttl_days, password } Fetches and republishes a page

Pass an owner key in the x-htmldrop-key header for higher rate limits and a longer default TTL. (x-pin-key is still accepted for backwards compatibility.)

Self-hosting

git clone https://github.com/vin-spiegel/htmldrop.git
cd htmldrop
pnpm install
cp .env.example .env   # defaults work out of the box
pnpm dev               # http://localhost:3000

The only variable you need to set is BASE_DOMAIN. Everything else has a working default. Storage falls back to the local filesystem (./data) when no object store is configured — no database required.

Environment variables

Variable Default Description
BASE_DOMAIN localhost Base domain for artifact subdomains. The one value most self-hosters must set.
PORT 3000 HTTP port (usually set by your host)
NODE_ENV development Set to production when deploying
CLOUDFLARE_R2_ENDPOINT S3-compatible endpoint. Set all four R2 vars to use object storage; leave all blank for filesystem
CLOUDFLARE_R2_ACCESS_KEY_ID Object-storage access key
CLOUDFLARE_R2_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY Object-storage secret key
CLOUDFLARE_R2_BUCKET_NAME Bucket name
ANON_TTL_DAYS 7 TTL for anonymous publishes
KEY_TTL_DAYS 30 TTL for keyed publishes
MAX_HTML_SIZE_BYTES 26214400 Upload cap (25 MiB)
RATE_LIMIT_ANON_PER_MINUTE 10 Per-IP rate limit
RATE_LIMIT_KEY_PER_MINUTE 60 Per-owner-key rate limit

Any S3-compatible store works for the CLOUDFLARE_R2_* variables (Cloudflare R2, AWS S3, MinIO, …). On ephemeral/container hosts, either use object storage or mount a persistent volume at ./data, or artifacts are lost on redeploy.

Production needs a wildcard DNS record (*.your-domain) pointing at the server so artifact subdomains resolve.

Deploy to Railway

railway login
railway init --name htmldrop
railway up

Then set BASE_DOMAIN and (optionally) the R2 variables in the Railway dashboard, and attach your domain plus its wildcard.

Safety defaults

  • Artifacts are served with X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow, noarchive
  • Per-IP and per-key rate limits
  • Everything expires via TTL
  • Optional password protection per artifact

See SECURITY.md for vulnerability and abuse reporting.

Development

pnpm dev        # run with tsx
pnpm test       # vitest
pnpm run build  # tsc -> dist/

License

MIT