mcp-server-webcrawl 0.10.0

MCP server for search and retrieval of web crawler content

mcp-server-webcrawl

Bridge the gap between your web crawl and AI language models using Model Context Protocol (MCP). With mcp-server-webcrawl, your AI client filters and analyzes web content under your direction or autonomously. The server includes a full-text search interface with boolean support, resource filtering by type, HTTP status, and more.

mcp-server-webcrawl provides the LLM a complete menu with which to search your web content, and works with a variety of web crawlers:

• WARC
• wget
• InterroBot
• Katana
• SiteOne

mcp-server-webcrawl is free and open source, and requires Claude Desktop and Python (>=3.10). It is installed on the command line, via pip install:

pip install mcp-server-webcrawl

Features

• Claude Desktop ready
• Fulltext search support
• Filter by type, status, and more
• Multi-crawler compatible
• Supports advanced/boolean and field searching

MCP Configuration

From the Claude Desktop menu, navigate to File > Settings > Developer. Click Edit Config to locate the configuration file, open in the editor of your choice and modify the example to reflect your datasrc path.

You can set up more mcp-server-webcrawl connections under mcpServers as needed.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "webcrawl": {
      "command": [varies by OS/env, see below],
       "args": [varies by crawler, see below]
    }
  }
}

For step-by-step setup, refer to the Setup Guides.

Windows vs. macOS

Windows: command set to "mcp-server-webcrawl"

macOS: command set to absolute path, i.e. the value of $ which mcp-server-webcrawl

For example:

"command": "/Users/yourusername/.local/bin/mcp-server-webcrawl",

To find the absolute path of the mcp-server-webcrawl executable on your system:

1. Open Terminal
2. Run which mcp-server-webcrawl
3. Copy the full path returned and use it in your config file

wget (using --mirror)

The datasrc argument should be set to the parent directory of the mirrors.

"args": ["--crawler", "wget", "--datasrc", "/path/to/wget/archives/"]

WARC

The datasrc argument should be set to the parent directory of the WARC files.

"args": ["--crawler", "warc", "--datasrc", "/path/to/warc/archives/"]

InterroBot

The datasrc argument should be set to the direct path to the database.

"args": ["--crawler", "interrobot", "--datasrc", "/path/to/Documents/InterroBot/interrobot.v2.db"]

Katana

The datasrc argument should be set to the directory of root hosts. Katana separates pages and media by hosts, ./archives/example.com/example.com is expected, and appropriate. More complicated sites expand the crawl data into origin host directories.

"args": ["--crawler", "katana", "--datasrc", "/path/to/katana/archives/"]

SiteOne (using Generate offline website)

The datasrc argument should be set to the parent directory of the archives, archiving must be enabled.

"args": ["--crawler", "siteone", "--datasrc", "/path/to/SiteOne/archives/"]

Boolean Search Syntax

The query engine supports field-specific (field: value) searches and complex boolean expressions. Fulltext is supported as a combination of the url, content, and headers fields.

While the API interface is designed to be consumed by the LLM directly, it can be helpful to familiarize yourself with the search syntax. Searches generated by the LLM are inspectable, but generally collapsed in the UI. If you need to see the query, expand the MCP collapsable.

Example Queries

Query Example	Description
privacy	fulltext single keyword match
"privacy policy"	fulltext match exact phrase
boundar*	fulltext wildcard matches results starting with boundar (boundary, boundaries)
id: 12345	id field matches a specific resource by ID
url: example.com/*	url field matches results with URL containing example.com/
type: html	type field matches for HTML pages only
status: 200	status field matches specific HTTP status codes (equal to 200)
status: >=400	status field matches specific HTTP status code (greater than or equal to 400)
content: h1	content field matches content (HTTP response body, often, but not always HTML)
headers: text/xml	headers field matches HTTP response headers
privacy AND policy	fulltext matches both
privacy OR policy	fulltext matches either
policy NOT privacy	fulltext matches policies not containing privacy
(login OR signin) AND form	fulltext matches fullext login or signin with form
type: html AND status: 200	fulltext matches only HTML pages with HTTP success

Field Search Definitions

Field search provides search precision, allowing you to specify which columns of the search index to filter. Rather than searching the entire content, you can restrict your query to specific attributes like URLs, headers, or content body. This approach improves efficiency when looking for specific attributes or patterns within crawl data.

Field	Description
id	database ID
url	resource URL
type	enumerated list of types (see types table)
status	HTTP response codes
headers	HTTP response headers
content	HTTP body—HTML, CSS, JS, and more

Content Types

Crawls contain a multitude of resource types beyond HTML pages. The type: field search allows filtering by broad content type groups, particularly useful when filtering images without complex extension queries. For example, you might search for type: html NOT content: login to find pages without "login," or type: img to analyze image resources. The table below lists all supported content types in the search system.

Type	Description
html	webpages
iframe	iframes
img	web images
audio	web audio files
video	web video files
font	web font files
style	CSS stylesheets
script	JavaScript files
rss	RSS syndication feeds
text	plain text content
pdf	PDF files
doc	MS Word documents
other	uncategorized

Extras

The extras parameter provides additional processing options for search results, enhancing the output format and capabilities while optimizing token usage. These options can be combined as needed to achieve the desired result format.

Extra	Description
thumbnails	Generates base64 encoded thumbnails for image resources that can be viewed and analyzed by AI models. Enables image description, content analysis, and visual understanding while keeping token output minimal. Only works for image (img) types, which can be filtered using type: img in queries. SVG is not supported.
markdown	Transforms the HTML content field into concise markdown, reducing token usage and improving readability for LLMs. This does not create a separate field but replaces the HTML in the content field with its markdown equivalent. Must be used with the content field in the fields parameter.
snippets	Matches fulltext queries to contextual keyword usage within the content. When used without requesting the content field (or markdown extra), it can provide an efficient means of refining a search without pulling down the complete page contents. Also great for rendering old school hit-highlighted results as a list, like Google search in 1999. Works with HTML, CSS, JS, or any text-based, crawled file.