The latest articles on Forem by Aline Mercer (@aline_mercer_e495a3af58ee). https://forem.com/aline_mercer_e495a3af58ee https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F3805244%2Ff91f4c94-a7d9-49d1-af93-b40e42e00d64.png https://forem.com/aline_mercer_e495a3af58ee en Aline Mercer Sun, 08 Mar 2026 01:36:56 +0000 https://forem.com/aline_mercer_e495a3af58ee/i-built-an-ai-agent-tool-marketplace-on-a-static-site-it-costs-almost-nothing-44c9 https://forem.com/aline_mercer_e495a3af58ee/i-built-an-ai-agent-tool-marketplace-on-a-static-site-it-costs-almost-nothing-44c9 <p>If you are building with AI agents, you have probably hit this wall: your agent needs tools but finding them means digging through GitHub repos and random blog posts. There is no npm for AI agent tools.</p> <p>That is the problem I set out to solve with <a href="https://tutuoai.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">TutuoAI</a>, a marketplace for AI agent tools. We now catalog 116 products (38 paid, 78 free), and the entire thing runs on a static site architecture that costs almost nothing to operate.</p> <h2> The Discovery Problem </h2> <p>AI agents are only as good as the tools they can access. Tool discovery is a mess:</p> <ul> <li> <strong>For developers</strong>: You Google AI tools, get 50 listicles, spend hours evaluating</li> <li> <strong>For agents</strong>: No machine-readable catalog exists</li> <li> <strong>For tool builders</strong>: Hard to get discovered</li> </ul> <h2> The Architecture: Why Static Wins </h2> <p><strong>S3 + CloudFront</strong> serves pre-rendered HTML pages. <strong>Stripe Checkout</strong> handles payments with no backend. No servers, no databases, no containers.</p> <p>Cost: essentially free. Speed: ~50ms globally. Reliability: 99.999999999% durability.</p> <h2> Making It Machine-Readable: llms.txt and JSON-LD </h2> <p>I implemented <a href="https://llmstxt.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer">llms.txt</a> so any AI agent can programmatically discover what tools are available. Every product page also includes Schema.org JSON-LD for structured data.</p> <h2> Lessons Learned </h2> <p><strong>What worked:</strong> Static architecture kept costs at zero. llms.txt generated interest from AI developers. Stripe Checkout eliminated weeks of backend work.</p> <p><strong>What did not work yet:</strong> Zero-traffic chicken-and-egg problem. SEO takes months. llms.txt adoption is still early.</p> <h2> Check It Out </h2> <p>If you are building AI agent tools or want to discover what exists, check out <a href="https://tutuoai.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">tutuoai.com</a>.</p> <p>Drop a comment if you have questions about the architecture!</p> ai webdev showdev discuss Aline Mercer Wed, 04 Mar 2026 07:18:50 +0000 https://forem.com/aline_mercer_e495a3af58ee/i-built-a-1-ai-agent-tools-marketplace-with-zero-backend-heres-the-architecture-34la https://forem.com/aline_mercer_e495a3af58ee/i-built-a-1-ai-agent-tools-marketplace-with-zero-backend-heres-the-architecture-34la <h2> The Discovery Problem </h2> <p>AI agents are only as good as the tools they can access. But right n</p> architecture ai webdev startup