News MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides news information from various RSS feeds, designed to integrate with AI assistants like Claude.

Features

• Get the latest news from various categories (tech, business, science, etc.)
• Search for news articles matching specific terms
• View articles from specific feeds
• Get detailed information about individual articles
• Caching to improve performance and reduce load on RSS sources
• Configurable via environment variables

Installation

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10 or higher
• MCP SDK 1.2.0 or higher

Setup

1. Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/ltejedor/newsfeed-mcp.git
cd news-mcp

2. Create a virtual environment and install dependencies:

python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Run the server:

python news_mcp.py

Docker Installation

To run the server using Docker:

docker-compose up -d

Configuration

The server can be configured using environment variables:

• NEWS_MCP_CUSTOM_FEEDS: Additional RSS feeds in the format name1:url1;name2:url2
• LOG_LEVEL: Set logging level (INFO, DEBUG, WARNING, ERROR)

Usage with Claude for Desktop

1. Make sure you have Claude for Desktop installed and updated.

2. Open your Claude for Desktop App configuration:

   • On macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
   • On Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

3. Add your news server to the configuration:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "news": {
            "command": "python",
            "args": [
                "/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/news_mcp.py"
            ]
        }
    }
}

4. Restart Claude for Desktop.

5. Look for the hammer icon (🔨) in Claude for Desktop to access your tools.

Available Tools

The server provides the following tools:

health_check()

Check if the server is running properly and get basic stats.

list_available_feeds()

Get a list of all available feeds and categories.

Example usage in Claude:

What news feeds do you have available?

get_latest_news(category, limit)

Get recent news articles, optionally filtered by category.

Parameters:

• category: Optional - Filter by category (tech, general, business, science, travel, politics)
• limit: Optional - Maximum number of articles to return (default: 5, max: 20)

Example usage in Claude:

Show me the latest tech news

search_news(query, limit)

Search for news articles matching a specific term.

Parameters:

• query: Search term to look for in news articles
• limit: Optional - Maximum number of articles to return (default: 5, max: 20)

Example usage in Claude:

Search for news about climate change

get_feed_content(feed_name, limit)

Get articles from a specific feed.

Parameters:

• feed_name: Name of the feed to fetch
• limit: Optional - Maximum number of articles to return (default: 5, max: 20)

Example usage in Claude:

Get articles from the NASA feed

get_article_details(url)

Get detailed information about an article by URL.

Parameters:

• url: The URL of the article to retrieve details for

Example usage in Claude:

Tell me more about this article: https://www.example.com/article

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.