Fetch MCP Server

An MCP server for fetching web content in multiple formats — HTML, JSON, plain text, Markdown, readable article content, and YouTube transcripts.

Tools

All tools accept the following common parameters:

| Parameter | Type | Required | Description | |-----------|------|----------|-------------| | url | string | Yes | URL to fetch | | headers | object | No | Custom headers to include in the request | | max_length | number | No | Maximum characters to return (default: 5000) | | start_index | number | No | Start from this character index (default: 0) | | proxy | string | No | Proxy URL (e.g. http://proxy:8080) |

• fetch_html — Fetch a website and return its raw HTML content.

• fetch_markdown — Fetch a website and return its content converted to Markdown.

• fetch_txt — Fetch a website and return plain text with HTML tags, scripts, and styles removed.

• fetch_json — Fetch a URL and return the JSON response.

• fetch_readable — Fetch a website and extract the main article content using Mozilla Readability, returned as Markdown. Strips navigation, ads, and boilerplate. Ideal for articles and blog posts.

• fetch_youtube_transcript — Fetch a YouTube video's captions/transcript. Uses yt-dlp if available, otherwise extracts directly from the page. Accepts an additional lang parameter (default: "en") to select the caption language.

Installation

As an MCP server

Add to your MCP client configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fetch": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["mcp-fetch-server"]
    }
  }
}

As a CLI

npx mcp-fetch <command> <url> [flags]

Or install globally:

npm install -g mcp-fetch-server
mcp-fetch <command> <url> [flags]

CLI Usage

mcp-fetch <command> <url> [flags]

Commands

| Command | Description | |---------|-------------| | html | Fetch a URL and return raw HTML | | markdown | Fetch a URL and return Markdown | | readable | Fetch a URL and return article content as Markdown (via Readability) | | txt | Fetch a URL and return plain text | | json | Fetch a URL and return JSON | | youtube | Fetch a YouTube video transcript |

Flags

| Flag | Description | |------|-------------| | --max-length <N> | Maximum characters to return | | --start-index <N> | Start from this character index | | --proxy <URL> | Proxy URL | | --lang <code> | Language code for YouTube transcripts (default: en) | | --help | Show help message | | --version | Show version |

Examples

# Fetch a page as markdown
mcp-fetch markdown https://example.com

# Extract article content without boilerplate
mcp-fetch readable https://example.com/blog/post

# Get a YouTube transcript in Spanish
mcp-fetch youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ --lang es

# Fetch with a length limit
mcp-fetch html https://example.com --max-length 10000

# Fetch through a proxy
mcp-fetch json https://api.example.com/data --proxy http://proxy:8080

Environment Variables

| Variable | Description | |----------|-------------| | DEFAULT_LIMIT | Default character limit for responses (default: 5000, set to 0 for no limit) |

Example with a custom limit:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fetch": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["mcp-fetch-server"],
      "env": {
        "DEFAULT_LIMIT": "50000"
      }
    }
  }
}

Features

• Fetch web content as HTML, JSON, plain text, or Markdown
• Extract article content with Mozilla Readability (strips ads, nav, boilerplate)
• Extract YouTube video transcripts (via yt-dlp or direct extraction)
• Proxy support for requests behind firewalls
• Pagination with max_length and start_index
• Custom request headers
• SSRF protection (blocks private/localhost addresses)

Development

bun install
bun run dev     # start with watch mode
bun test        # run tests
bun run build   # build for production

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.