MCP server

The NewsCatcher MCP server lets an AI assistant search the news and run the agent for you. Ask in plain language; the assistant picks the tools, and answers with headlines, summaries, sources and links.

News: ranked search in every language, every article that matches a query over 12 months, article counts over time, and the coverage of one story.
Agent: verified tables of events, news about a list of companies, saved company lists and monitors that bring only what is new.

The server is hosted at https://mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp and is open source: Newscatcher/newscatcher-mcp.

The tools are not a copy of the API. Each one is built for an assistant: it may call several endpoints and returns compact text instead of the full JSON. To build an application, call the News API or the agent directly.

Before you start

A NewsCatcher API key from the platform. It is the same key you use for the API, and tool calls draw on the same credit balance.
An MCP client that supports remote (HTTP) servers: Claude, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Codex, Gemini CLI and most others.

Authentication

Send your key with every request, in one of these ways:

How	When to use it
`x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY` header	Recommended, for every client that can send headers
`Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY` header	Clients that only send bearer tokens
`?apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY` on the server URL	Clients with no field for headers, such as Claude.ai custom connectors

A header wins over ?apiKey= when both are set. A request without a key gets 401.

A key in the URL can end up in logs and screenshots. Use a header when your client allows it, and never commit a configuration file that holds your key. Use a separate key for the MCP server, so you can revoke it without touching your applications.

OAuth sign-in is coming soon. You will then connect with your NewsCatcher account instead of pasting an API key, and the key in the URL will no longer be needed.

Connect to Claude

Claude Code plugin
Claude Code
Claude.ai and Claude Desktop

The plugin connects Claude Code to the server and adds ready-made skills for common news tasks.

Add the marketplace

In Claude Code, run:

/plugin marketplace add Newscatcher/newscatcher-mcp

Install the plugin

/plugin install newscatcher@newscatcher

Claude Code asks for your API key once and keeps it in your system keychain.

Test it

Start a new session and ask: “Check my NewsCatcher account.” This calls get_account, which is free, and shows your plan and balance.

To add only the server, without the skills, run:

claude mcp add --transport http newscatcher \
  https://mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp \
  --header "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

Run /mcp in a session to check that newscatcher is connected. Then ask: “Check my NewsCatcher account.”

Open connectors

Go to claude.ai/customize/connectors, or Settings > Connectors in Claude Desktop. Click + and select Add custom connector.

Add the server

Name: NewsCatcher
Remote MCP server URL:

https://mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp?apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY

Custom connectors cannot send headers, so the key goes in the URL.

Test it

Open a new chat and ask: “Check my NewsCatcher account.”

Connect to other clients

Add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "newscatcher": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp?client=cursor",
      "headers": { "x-api-key": "YOUR_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

Add to .vscode/mcp.json. VS Code asks for the key the first time and stores it, so it never lands in a file you might commit:

{
  "inputs": [
    {
      "type": "promptString",
      "id": "newscatcher-api-key",
      "description": "NewsCatcher API key",
      "password": true
    }
  ],
  "servers": {
    "newscatcher": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp",
      "headers": { "x-api-key": "${input:newscatcher-api-key}" }
    }
  }
}

Add to ~/.codex/config.toml, with your key in the NEWSCATCHER_API_KEY environment variable:

[mcp_servers.newscatcher]
url = "https://mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp"
bearer_token_env_var = "NEWSCATCHER_API_KEY"

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

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "newscatcher": {
      "serverUrl": "https://mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp",
      "headers": { "x-api-key": "YOUR_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

Add to ~/.gemini/settings.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "newscatcher": {
      "httpUrl": "https://mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp",
      "headers": { "x-api-key": "YOUR_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

For a client that supports remote MCP servers with headers:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "newscatcher": {
      "url": "https://mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp",
      "headers": { "x-api-key": "YOUR_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

For a client that only runs local servers, use the mcp-remote proxy (needs Node.js):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "newscatcher": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-remote",
        "https://mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp",
        "--header",
        "x-api-key:YOUR_API_KEY"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Write the header as x-api-key:YOUR_API_KEY, with no space after the colon.

Restart the client after you change its configuration file.

Plugins and skills

The repository includes a plugin for Claude Code, with manifests for Codex and Cursor. It has:

The server connection, with your key kept in the keychain (Claude Code) or read from NEWSCATCHER_API_KEY (Codex).
53 skills. Each one tells the assistant which tools to call for a task and how to present the result.
A news-researcher subagent for research that takes several searches. It returns a short, cited brief and keeps the searches out of your main conversation.

You do not call skills by name: ask for the task, and the assistant loads the matching skill.

What the skills cover

Area	Skills
Briefings	News briefing, weekly digest, breaking news, market-moving news, story deep dive, event timeline, local news, multilingual news
Companies and people	Company brief, company watchlist, competitor intelligence, person profile, executive moves, startup discovery
Risk	Adverse media screening, sanctions watch, supplier risk, geopolitical risk, ESG controversies, cyber incidents, litigation, regulatory changes, bankruptcy and distress, recalls and safety, brand crisis
Deals and events	M&A, funding rounds, IPOs, layoffs, partnerships, expansions, product launches, government contracts, earnings season, pharma pipeline, commodities
Sales, PR and analysis	Sales trigger events, share of voice, PR coverage report, media outreach targets, coverage comparison, news trend analysis, fact check
Data and building	Event datasets, news data export, query writing, news grounding for agents, News API and agent integration, news alerts, News API evaluation, migrating from NewsAPI.org

Tools

The server has 15 tools in four toolsets.

Toolset	Tool	What it does	Learn more
`news`	`search_news`	Ranked, story-grouped search over the last 30 days, in any language	Search, effort levels
`news`	`list_articles`	Every article that matches a query over 12 months, with the exact total; can tally them by outlet, author, country or language	Every matching article
`news`	`count_articles`	Article counts per day, week or month for up to five queries, for trends and share of voice	Every matching article
`news`	`get_story`	All coverage of one story: newsrooms, languages and the earliest articles	Stories
`news`	`get_account`	Plan, credit balance and limits	Rate limits
`research`	`start_research`	Starts an agent run for events or companies. `dry_run` estimates time and cost for free	Event research, company research
`research`	`get_research`	Waits for a run and shows its table, or lists your runs	Results and exports
`research`	`cancel_research`	Stops a run	Runs
`lists`	`save_company_list`, `get_company_list`, `edit_company_list`	Reusable lists of companies	Company lists
`monitors`	`create_monitor`, `get_monitor`, `get_monitor_updates`, `update_monitor`	Repeat research on a schedule and read only what is new	Monitors

The server also has two guides the assistant can read (newscatcher://guides/query-syntax and newscatcher://guides/research-agent) and three prompts: news_briefing, company_watch and event_dataset.

Load only some tools

Every tool description takes space in the assistant’s context. To load fewer tools, add ?tools= to the server URL with the toolsets you need:

https://mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp?tools=news
https://mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp?tools=news,research

Without ?tools=, all four toolsets load.

Credits

Tool calls cost the same as the API requests behind them. See Credits and pricing for the prices.

search_news costs 1, 5 or 10 credits by effort. get_story costs 1, list_articles costs 5 per call.
count_articles makes one 5-credit call per time bucket and query, up to 60 calls. A 30-day daily trend for two queries is 60 calls.
Agent runs and monitors are charged like runs started through the API. Ask for a dry run first (“how much would this cost?”) to get the estimate for free.
get_account, get_research, cancel_research and the company list tools are free.

The server tells the assistant to confirm large agent jobs with you before starting them: standard or max runs, many companies, or hourly schedules.

Example prompts

What happened

What were the biggest stories about Nvidia this week? Cite sources.

Every article, older news

How many articles mentioned “Ozempic” AND “shortage” between March and June? Which outlets wrote the most?

Trends

Compare daily coverage of OpenAI and Anthropic over the last 30 days. When did each one spike, and why?

A table of events

Build a table of layoffs announced by US tech companies in the last 30 days, with company, number of jobs and source.

Companies

Get the last 90 days of funding and acquisition news for stripe.com, adyen.com and checkout.com, then keep me updated weekly.

Limits

search_news covers the last 30 days. For older news, the assistant uses list_articles, which reaches back 12 months.
The hosted server cannot write files. Agent tables come back in the answer, up to 200 rows at a time. Download the full table from the run in the platform or through exports.
A tool call answers within about four minutes. If a run is still going, get_research returns what it has; ask the assistant to check again.

Troubleshooting

401 Unauthorized

The request carried no key, or an invalid one. Check the header name (x-api-key) and the key in the platform. In Claude.ai, check that the URL ends with ?apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY.

Tools do not appear

Restart the client after editing its configuration file. A connector added in Claude.ai or Claude Desktop needs no restart: open a new chat. If only some tools appear, check the ?tools= parameter on the URL.

A research run takes long

fast runs take a few minutes; standard and max runs can take 10 to 30 minutes or more. Ask the assistant to check the run again later, or follow it in the platform.

The assistant mentions export_research or save_as

Some skills mention file tools that only exist in local setups. On the hosted server, ask for the table in the answer, or download it from the platform.

Using the Enterprise News API? It has its own MCP server.

GitHub repository

Source code, changelog, plugin and issues

News API quickstart

Make your first search

Agent overview

What the agent researches and how

Docs for AI agents

Let your coding agent read these docs

Get started

News API

Agent

Integrations

Resources

Before you start

Authentication

Connect to Claude

Connect to other clients

Plugins and skills

Tools

Load only some tools

Credits

Example prompts

Limits

Troubleshooting

See also

GitHub repository

News API quickstart

Agent overview

Docs for AI agents

​Before you start

​Authentication

​Connect to Claude

​Connect to other clients

​Plugins and skills

​Tools

​Load only some tools

​Credits

​Example prompts

​Limits

​Troubleshooting

​See also

GitHub repository

News API quickstart

Agent overview

Docs for AI agents

Before you start

Authentication

Connect to Claude

Connect to other clients

Plugins and skills

Tools

Load only some tools

Credits

Example prompts

Limits

Troubleshooting

See also