Fetch MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol server that provides web content fetching capabilities. This server enables LLMs to retrieve and process content from web pages, converting HTML to markdown for easier consumption.

Source: https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers/tree/main/src/fetch

Requires MCP Python SDK 2.x (mcp>=2.3,<3).

The fetch tool will truncate the response, but by using the start_index argument, you can specify where to start the content extraction. This lets models read a webpage in chunks, until they find the information they need.

Available Tools

• fetch - Fetches a URL from the internet and extracts its contents as markdown.
  • url (string, required): URL to fetch
  • max_length (integer, optional): Maximum number of characters to return (default: 5000)
  • start_index (integer, optional): Start content from this character index (default: 0)
  • raw (boolean, optional): Get raw content without markdown conversion (default: false)
  • Annotations: readOnlyHint: true, destructiveHint: false, idempotentHint: true, openWorldHint: true (it only reads, and it reaches arbitrary hosts on the internet)

Prompts

• fetch
  • Fetch a URL and extract its contents as markdown
  • Arguments:
    • url (string, required): URL to fetch

Errors

• A failed fetch (a robots.txt refusal, an unreachable page, an HTTP error status, a refused private address, an unusable proxy setting) and arguments that do not match the tool's schema are returned as a tool result with isError: true, whose text starts Error executing tool fetch: and says what went wrong, so the model can read it and decide what to do.
• Calling a tool the server does not have is a JSON-RPC protocol error, -32602 (Unknown tool: <name>), as the specification requires. So is getting a prompt it does not have (Unknown prompt: <name>), or the fetch prompt without its url (URL is required).
• When the fetch prompt's fetch fails, the prompt still returns: its message holds the reason the fetch failed.

The server is built on the MCP Python SDK's high-level MCPServer: the tool and the prompt are decorated functions, and their type hints and field descriptions are the input schema and the prompt's arguments.

Protocol versions

The server speaks both eras of the Model Context Protocol over stdio, with nothing to configure: a 2026-07-28 client (discovered with server/discover, no session) and a 2025-11-25 client (the initialize handshake). The client's first request decides which. Tools and prompts behave the same in both. Methods the 2026-07-28 specification removes, such as ping, are answered only on a 2025-11-25 connection.

Installation

Optionally: Install node.js, this will cause the fetch server to use a different HTML simplifier that is more robust.

Using uv (recommended)

When using uv no specific installation is needed. We will use uvx to directly run mcp-server-fetch.

Using PIP

Alternatively you can install mcp-server-fetch via pip:

pip install mcp-server-fetch

After installation, you can run it as a script using:

python -m mcp_server_fetch

Configuration

Configure for Claude.app

Add to your Claude settings:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fetch": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mcp-server-fetch"]
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fetch": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": ["run", "-i", "--rm", "mcp/fetch"]
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fetch": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["-m", "mcp_server_fetch"]
    }
  }
}

Configure for VS Code

For quick installation, use one of the one-click install buttons below...

For manual installation, add the following JSON block to your User Settings (JSON) file in VS Code. You can do this by pressing Ctrl + Shift + P and typing Preferences: Open User Settings (JSON).

Optionally, you can add it to a file called .vscode/mcp.json in your workspace. This will allow you to share the configuration with others.

Note that the mcp key is needed when using the mcp.json file.

{
  "mcp": {
    "servers": {
      "fetch": {
        "command": "uvx",
        "args": ["mcp-server-fetch"]
      }
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcp": {
    "servers": {
      "fetch": {
        "command": "docker",
        "args": ["run", "-i", "--rm", "mcp/fetch"]
      }
    }
  }
}

Customization - robots.txt

By default, the server will obey a websites robots.txt file if the request came from the model (via a tool), but not if the request was user initiated (via a prompt). This can be disabled by adding the argument --ignore-robots-txt to the args list in the configuration.

Customization - Private addresses

By default, the server refuses any request, including a redirect hop or a robots.txt fetch, whose host resolves to an address that is not globally routable: loopback (127.0.0.0/8, ::1), private (10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, 192.168.0.0/16, fc00::/7), link-local (169.254.0.0/16, fe80::/10), shared address space (100.64.0.0/10), multicast, unspecified, documentation and the other IANA special-purpose ranges. A hostname is refused if any one of its addresses is in those ranges. The client receives an error naming the refused address.

To fetch from local or internal hosts (a development server, an intranet page), add the argument --allow-private-ips to the args list in the configuration.

Customization - User-agent

By default, depending on if the request came from the model (via a tool), or was user initiated (via a prompt), the server will use either the user-agent

ModelContextProtocol/1.0 (Autonomous; +https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers)

or

ModelContextProtocol/1.0 (User-Specified; +https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers)

This can be customized by adding the argument --user-agent=YourUserAgent to the args list in the configuration.

Customization - Proxy

The server can be configured to use a proxy by using the --proxy-url argument.

Without --proxy-url, the server uses the proxy in the standard HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY and ALL_PROXY environment variables (honoring NO_PROXY). Both http(s):// and SOCKS5 proxies are supported (SOCKS support is installed with the server). A socks:// proxy URL, as many desktop proxy settings export it, is treated as socks5://. A proxy setting the server cannot use makes each fetch fail with a tool error that says so.

Windows Configuration

If you're experiencing timeout issues on Windows, you may need to set the PYTHONIOENCODING environment variable to ensure proper character encoding:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fetch": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mcp-server-fetch"],
      "env": {
        "PYTHONIOENCODING": "utf-8"
      }
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fetch": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["-m", "mcp_server_fetch"],
      "env": {
        "PYTHONIOENCODING": "utf-8"
      }
    }
  }
}

This addresses character encoding issues that can cause the server to timeout on Windows systems.

Debugging

You can use the MCP inspector to debug the server. For uvx installations:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uvx mcp-server-fetch

Or if you've installed the package in a specific directory or are developing on it:

cd path/to/servers/src/fetch
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uv run mcp-server-fetch

Development

From src/fetch:

uv sync --frozen --all-extras --dev
uv run --frozen pytest

The tests drive serve() through an MCP ClientSession in-process (and, in tests/test_eras.py, through a Client as a 2026-07-28 and as a 2025-11-25 client), with HTTP mocked, so they need no network. The HTML extraction tests need Node.js on PATH (readabilipy uses Readability.js when Node is present and a pure-Python fallback when it is not).

Coverage, measured per file with branch coverage:

uv run --frozen pytest --cov --cov-report=term-missing --cov-report=json

This writes coverage.json (git-ignored). The command reports coverage but does not enforce a threshold; the target is at least 90% of lines and 90% of branches for every file under src/mcp_server_fetch.

Contributing

We encourage contributions to help improve mcp-server-fetch. Bug reports, ideas for new tools, enhancements to existing functionality, and documentation improvements are all valuable.

For examples of other MCP servers and implementation patterns, see: https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers

Contributions arrive as issues, not pull requests: the repository maintainers do the implementation. Open an issue with the bug report or feature request form, and if you have already prototyped a change, share the prompt you used rather than a diff. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full policy.

License

mcp-server-fetch is licensed under the MIT License. This means you are free to use, modify, and distribute the software, subject to the terms and conditions of the MIT License. For more details, please see the LICENSE file in the project repository.