Fetch

servers

What is servers?

The servers project is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server designed to fetch web content. It enables Large Language Models (LLMs) to retrieve and process information from web pages by converting HTML content into markdown format for easier parsing and utilization by the models.

How to use servers?

To use the servers project, you can install it using uv (recommended) or pip.

Using uv (recommended): No specific installation is needed. You can directly run mcp-server-fetch using uvx:

uvx mcp-server-fetch

Using pip: Install the package via pip:

pip install mcp-server-fetch

Then, run it as a script:

python -m mcp_server_fetch

You can configure the server for applications like Claude.app or VS Code by adding specific JSON configurations to your settings, which can be done via uvx, Docker, or pip installation methods.

Key Features of servers

• Web Content Fetching: Retrieves content from specified URLs.
• HTML to Markdown Conversion: Converts fetched HTML content into markdown format.
• Configurable Fetching: Allows specifying start_index to begin content extraction from a particular character position and max_length to limit the response size.
• Raw Content Option: Provides an option to fetch raw content without markdown conversion using the raw argument.
• Robots.txt Adherence: Can be configured to obey a website's robots.txt file.
• Customizable User-agent: Allows customization of the user-agent string for requests.
• Proxy Support: Can be configured to use a proxy server via the --proxy-url argument.
• Debugging Tools: Offers an MCP inspector for debugging.

Use Cases of servers

• LLM Web Browsing: Enables LLMs to access and process information from the internet.
• Content Summarization: Fetches web page content for summarization by LLMs.
• Data Extraction: Extracts specific data points from web pages for analysis.
• Research Assistance: Helps researchers gather information from online sources.

FAQ from servers

• Security Risk: The server can access local/internal IP addresses, so caution is advised to prevent sensitive data exposure.
• Installation: While uv is recommended for easier use, pip is also a viable installation method.
• Configuration: Specific JSON configurations are provided for integrating the server with Claude.app and VS Code.
• robots.txt: The server's adherence to robots.txt can be controlled via configuration.
• User-agent: The default user-agent can be customized.
• Proxy: The server supports proxy configuration.

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.

[!CAUTION] This server can access local/internal IP addresses and may represent a security risk. Exercise caution when using this MCP server to ensure this does not expose any sensitive data.

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)

Prompts

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

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 - 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.

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

Contributing

We encourage contributions to help expand and improve mcp-server-fetch. Whether you want to add new tools, enhance existing functionality, or improve documentation, your input is valuable.

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

Pull requests are welcome! Feel free to contribute new ideas, bug fixes, or enhancements to make mcp-server-fetch even more powerful and useful.

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.