News API MCP server

The MCP server exposes News API tools to any MCP-compatible client. It handles authentication, request formatting, and response formatting so the client can search articles, pull latest headlines and breaking news, look up an author’s work, resolve articles by URL or ID, browse sources, get aggregation counts, and check subscription/quota status.

MCP tool	News API endpoint
`search_articles`	`POST /api/search`
`get_latest_headlines`	`POST /api/latest_headlines`
`get_breaking_news`	`POST /api/breaking_news`
`search_by_author`	`POST /api/authors`
`search_by_link`	`POST /api/search_by_link`
`list_sources`	`POST /api/sources`
`get_aggregation_count`	`POST /api/aggregation_count`
`get_subscription`	`POST /api/subscription`
`check_health`	(local liveness ping — no upstream call)

Every tool uses POST under the hood even though News API also exposes a GET variant of each endpoint — POST keeps API keys and queries out of access logs, avoids URL-length limits, and lets multi-value filters be sent as native JSON arrays. The server is open source. Source code, changelog, and issue tracker: Newscatcher/news-mcp.

Before you start

News API key from platform.newscatcherapi.com
MCP-compatible client (Claude, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Zed, Warp, Gemini CLI, Roo Code, or any client that supports remote MCP)

Authentication

The MCP server resolves your API key from multiple sources, in this order (first match wins):

?apiToken=YOUR_KEY URL query parameter — used by Claude.ai because its connector UI does not support custom request headers
x-api-token HTTP request header — recommended for every client that supports custom headers
Authorization: Bearer <key> HTTP request header
NEWS_API_KEY environment variable on the server host

Most client configurations use option 2 (the x-api-token header). Claude.ai uses option 1 (the apiToken query parameter) automatically. check_health is the only tool that does not require authentication — it’s a local liveness ping and never calls News API. To rotate your key, update your client configuration with the new key and restart the client.

When you pass the key through a --header flag (Claude Code, mcp-remote), use the header-name:value format with no space after the colon — for example x-api-token:YOUR_NEWS_API_KEY. A space or a missing colon is the most common reason a connection silently fails to authenticate.

Configure only one authentication method per client. If a request carries ?apiToken=, it wins over an x-api-token or Authorization header sent alongside it — and the key seen on the session’s first request is reused for the rest of that session. A stale key in the URL keeps returning 401 even when the header holds a valid one.

Your configuration file contains your API key in plain text. Treat it as a secret and do not share it or commit it to version control.

Connect to Claude

Claude.ai
Claude Desktop
Claude Code

Open connectors

Go to claude.ai/customize/connectors. Click + and select Add custom connector.

Configure connection

Fill in the Add custom connector dialog:

Name: News API
Remote MCP server URL:

https://news-mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp?apiToken=YOUR_NEWS_API_KEY

Add and verify

Click Add. Verify that News API appears under Web in your connectors list.

Test connection

Open a new chat and ask Claude to run check_health. This tool needs no API key, so a successful response confirms the connection itself works — isolating connection problems from key problems. Then try a real query, for example: “Get the latest headlines about renewable energy, limit 10”.

Claude Desktop supports remote MCP servers through the Connectors UI (Settings > Customize > Connectors) — the same flow as Claude.ai.Alternatively, you can configure it via a JSON config file. This approach does not support native remote MCP, so it requires mcp-remote as a proxy.

Install Node.js

Run node --version to check if Node.js is installed. If the command fails, download and install it from nodejs.org before continuing.

Fix npm permissions (once)

Run this once to avoid permission errors when using npx:

sudo chown -R $(whoami) ~/.npm

Install mcp-remote

npm install -g mcp-remote

Open configuration file

macOS
Windows

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

Or open it from Claude Desktop: Settings > Developer > Edit Config.

Add News API entry

Paste the following into the file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "news": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-remote",
        "https://news-mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp",
        "--header",
        "x-api-token:YOUR_NEWS_API_KEY"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Write the header value as x-api-token:YOUR_NEWS_API_KEY with no space after the colon (see Authentication).

On Windows, npx often cannot be launched directly from this config. If the server fails to start, wrap it with cmd: set "command": "cmd" and prepend "/c", "npx" to the args array.

Restart Claude Desktop

Save the file and quit Claude Desktop completely, then relaunch it. Claude Desktop loads MCP tools on startup.

Verify connection

Go to Settings > Developer. Next to news, the status should show running. To confirm end to end, open a new chat and ask Claude to run check_health — it needs no API key, so a clean response proves the connection works.

Add the server

Run in your terminal:

claude mcp add --transport http news \
  "https://news-mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp" \
  --header "x-api-token:YOUR_NEWS_API_KEY"

Keep the colon tight: x-api-token:YOUR_NEWS_API_KEY with no space after the colon, or the header is sent malformed (see Authentication).

Verify connection

Run claude mcp list and confirm news is listed, or type /mcp inside a Claude Code session to see it marked as connected.

Test connection

In a session, ask Claude to run check_health. This tool needs no API key, so a successful response confirms the connection works before you spend credits on a real query. Then try: “Get the latest headlines about renewable energy, limit 10”.

Connect to other clients

Or add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json manually:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "news": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://news-mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp?apiToken=YOUR_NEWS_API_KEY"
    }
  }
}

Restart Cursor after saving.

Or add to .vscode/mcp.json in your project root manually:

{
  "servers": {
    "news": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://news-mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp?apiToken=YOUR_NEWS_API_KEY"
    }
  }
}

Restart VS Code after saving.

Add to ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "news": {
      "serverUrl": "https://news-mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "x-api-token": "YOUR_NEWS_API_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Windsurf after saving.

Add to your Zed settings (~/.config/zed/settings.json):

{
  "context_servers": {
    "news": {
      "url": "https://news-mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "x-api-token": "YOUR_NEWS_API_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Zed after saving.

Go to Settings > MCP Servers > Add MCP Server and add:

{
  "news": {
    "url": "https://news-mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp",
    "headers": {
      "x-api-token": "YOUR_NEWS_API_KEY"
    }
  }
}

Add to ~/.gemini/settings.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "news": {
      "httpUrl": "https://news-mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "x-api-token": "YOUR_NEWS_API_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Gemini CLI after saving.

Add to your Roo Code MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "news": {
      "type": "streamable-http",
      "url": "https://news-mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "x-api-token": "YOUR_NEWS_API_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Roo Code after saving.

For clients that support native HTTP MCP with headers:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "news": {
      "url": "https://news-mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "x-api-token": "YOUR_NEWS_API_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

If your client does not support remote MCP servers natively, use mcp-remote as a proxy:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "news": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-remote",
        "https://news-mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp",
        "--header",
        "x-api-token:YOUR_NEWS_API_KEY"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Write the header value as x-api-token:YOUR_NEWS_API_KEY with no space after the colon (see Authentication).Restart your client after saving the configuration.

Replace YOUR_NEWS_API_KEY with your key. Do not share it or commit it to version control.

Available tools

Each tool maps to a News API endpoint. For request and response schemas, see the API reference.

Tool	Description
`search_articles`	Full-text/boolean search over articles, with date, language, source, entity, and NLP filters — clustered by default
`get_latest_headlines`	Recent headlines over a rolling time window, no keyword required — clustered by default
`get_breaking_news`	Actively trending, most-corroborated stories over a fixed window
`search_by_author`	All articles by one exact byline
`search_by_link`	Look up specific already-known articles by NewsCatcher `id` or URL
`list_sources`	Browse and verify publishers — requires at least one filter parameter
`get_aggregation_count`	Time-bucketed article-volume counts for a query, no articles returned
`get_subscription`	Plan tier, monthly quota, and remaining calls
`check_health`	Local liveness ping — no authentication required

“Latest”/“most recent” needs sort_by="date" explicitly — every tool that takes sort_by defaults to "relevancy", not "date". There is a hard cap of 10,000 articles per query regardless of pagination; call get_aggregation_count on a broad or undated query first and time-chunk the date range if the count is high.

Clustered results by default

search_articles and get_latest_headlines return grouped results unless you ask for a flat list. Their defaults:

Parameter	Default	Effect
`clustering_enabled`	`true`	Response has `clusters_count` and `clusters` (each `{cluster_id, cluster_size, articles}`) instead of a flat `articles` list
`page_size`	`50`	Sized for the grouped view rather than a flat article dump
`cluster_top_n_articles`	`3`	Shows at most three articles per cluster; `cluster_size` still reports the real total

Clustering regroups results, it does not shrink them: every matched article lands in a cluster and none are dropped, so one heavily syndicated story can otherwise fill a whole page with near-identical coverage. cluster_top_n_articles trims each cluster’s articles list while leaving cluster_size intact, so you always see how wide a story’s coverage actually is. Pass null for no cap. Turn clustering off when you want the articles themselves rather than grouped topic coverage — tracking a single outlet, checking whether a specific source covered a story, or paginating through a flat list:

Search for articles about AI regulation from reuters.com,
with clustering_enabled false and page_size 20

With clustering on, the exact article or source you are after may fall outside the top three of its cluster and never reach the response.

Other tools are unaffected. get_breaking_news returns story clusters with its own API-native top_n_articles parameter, and search_by_author, search_by_link, and get_aggregation_count remain unclustered with a default page_size of 100.

Response fields

search_articles, get_latest_headlines, get_breaking_news, search_by_author, and search_by_link accept a fields parameter that trims each article to the keys you name. News API returns around 40 fields per article and the content body alone can push a 30-article call past 300 KB, so these tools default to a lean set instead:

title, link, published_date, domain_url, author, language,
nlp.summary, nlp.translation_summary, nlp.theme

To get the full article object, pass fields explicitly as an empty list ([]) or as null. Leaving fields out of the call does not do this — an omitted fields applies the lean default like any other call. Only an explicit [] or null opts out. Field names are validated against the real article schema before the request goes out, so a typo returns a corrective error instead of silently disappearing from the response. NLP subfields need a dotted path — nlp.theme, nlp.sentiment, nlp.ner_ORG — or pass nlp alone for the whole block. There is no top-level summary field: use description for the short lede or nlp.summary for the AI-generated summary.

For the boolean toggles — clustering_enabled, exclude_duplicates, include_nlp_data, include_translation_fields — an explicit null means the same as omitting the parameter: the tool’s own default applies. fields and cluster_top_n_articles are the two exceptions, where null carries its own meaning (all fields, and no per-cluster cap).

Response size cap

Article-returning tools (search_articles, get_latest_headlines, get_breaking_news, search_by_author) cap each response at 250,000 bytes. A broad request — fields=[] with a large page_size and no filters — would otherwise return a payload big enough to swamp the client’s context window. The cap drops trailing articles until the response fits; it never touches the content of the articles it keeps, and it does not fire on responses that already fit, which is nearly all of them. When it does trim, the response carries a response_capped block:

{
  "response_capped": {
    "reason": "response exceeded the 250000-byte cap",
    "kept": 42,
    "dropped": 958,
    "hint": "narrow the query (add filters, pass fields=[...] instead of fields=[], or reduce page_size) to get more back in one call, or paginate with `page`"
  }
}

If you see it, narrow the query, name the fields you actually need instead of requesting the full object, lower page_size, or page through the results.

Troubleshooting

Tools not appearing

Restart your MCP client after updating the configuration. Most clients load MCP tools on startup and do not detect changes until restarted.

Connection refused or timeout

Verify your API key is valid by calling an authenticated endpoint:

curl -X POST "https://v3-api.newscatcherapi.com/api/search" \
  -H "x-api-token: YOUR_NEWS_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"q": "test"}'

If this returns a 401 error, your key is invalid. Check it at newscatcherapi.com/news-api.

Tool calls returning errors

Tools return a JSON string on success — compact for the article and source tools, pretty-printed for get_subscription and check_health. A validation or upstream API error comes back as a string starting with Error: ...; an unhandled exception comes back as Unexpected error: .... Check the returned string for the specific reason.

Fewer results than expected

Three separate limits can shorten a response. Clustered results show at most cluster_top_n_articles articles per cluster (default 3) — cluster_size reports the true total. The response size cap drops trailing articles from oversized payloads and adds a response_capped block when it does. And News API returns a maximum of 10,000 articles per query regardless of pagination.

Client does not support remote MCP

Use mcp-remote to proxy the connection. Install Node.js, then use the npx configuration shown in the Other clients tab.

API reference

Full endpoint documentation and schemas

Quickstart

Make your first News API call in under five minutes

Advanced querying

Boolean operators, proximity search, and query syntax

Build search queries

Get better results from News API searches

GitHub repository

Server source code, changelog, and issues

Get started

Guides and concepts

How to

Troubleshooting

API Reference

Libraries

Integrations

Before you start

Authentication

Connect to Claude

Connect to other clients

Available tools

Clustered results by default

Response fields

Response size cap

Troubleshooting

See also

API reference

Quickstart

Advanced querying

Build search queries

GitHub repository

​Before you start

​Authentication

​Connect to Claude

​Connect to other clients

​Available tools

​Clustered results by default

​Response fields

​Response size cap

​Troubleshooting

​See also

API reference

Quickstart

Advanced querying

Build search queries

GitHub repository

Before you start

Authentication

Connect to Claude

Connect to other clients

Available tools

Clustered results by default

Response fields

Response size cap

Troubleshooting

See also