News MCP Server

A FastMCP server that exposes news tools powered by the GNews API.

What this project does

This server provides two MCP tools:

• search_news(...) to search articles by keyword and filters
• top_headlines(...) to fetch current top stories by category

Requirements

• Python 3.14+
• uv
• A GNews API key

Setup

1. Install dependencies

   uv sync

1. Create a .env file in the project root with your API key:

   GNEWS_API_KEY=your_gnews_api_key_here

1. Start the server

   uv run python main.py

The server runs with the streamable-http transport.

Available tools

search_news

Search news articles with filters such as language, country, keywords, date range, and sorting.

Example:

search_news(q="OpenAI", lang="en", country="us", max=5)

top_headlines

Get top headlines for a category such as general, business, technology, health, and more.

Example:

top_headlines(category="technology", country="us", max=5)

Debugging with MCP Inspector

1. Start the Inspector:

   npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector

1. Connect using the streamable-http transport.

1. Use the server URL:

   http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp

If your local port differs, adjust the URL accordingly.

VS Code MCP configuration

You can connect this server to VS Code by adding a configuration similar to the following to your MCP settings:

{
  "servers": {
    "news-mcp-server": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Troubleshooting

• Make sure GNEWS_API_KEY is set correctly in your .env file.
• Confirm the server is running before connecting from the inspector or VS Code.
• If the inspector cannot connect, verify that the server URL includes /mcp.