WebLens MCP

Web scraping and content extraction MCP server for AI agents. Renders any URL — including JavaScript-heavy SPAs — with headless Chrome via Playwright, extracts readable content with Mozilla Readability, downloads images locally, and returns a clean markdown file. Works with Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, VS Code, Codex, and any MCP-compatible client.

npx -y weblens-mcp — zero config, just add your Chrome path and go.

Key Features

• Single tool — one fetch_page call does everything: render, extract, download, return
• Markdown output — returns a local .md file path with images embedded as local paths
• Article extraction — uses Mozilla Readability for clean content
• Asset download — page images are downloaded to a local tmp directory automatically
• Auto cleanup — downloaded files are purged after 6 hours

Requirements

• Node.js 20 or newer
• Chrome or Chromium installed on the system

Getting started

Standard config works in most MCP clients:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "weblens": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "weblens-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "CHROMIUM_PATH": "/usr/bin/google-chrome"
      }
    }
  }
}

claude mcp add weblens -- npx -y weblens-mcp

Or add to your project's .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "weblens": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "weblens-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "CHROMIUM_PATH": "/usr/bin/google-chrome"
      }
    }
  }
}

Follow the MCP install guide, use the standard config above.

Create or edit ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.weblens]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "weblens-mcp"]

[mcp_servers.weblens.env]
CHROMIUM_PATH = "/usr/bin/google-chrome"

Go to Cursor Settings → MCP → Add new MCP Server. Use command type with the command npx -y weblens-mcp.

code --add-mcp '{"name":"weblens","command":"npx","args":["-y","weblens-mcp"]}'

Configuration

| Environment Variable | Description | Default | |---|---|---| | CHROMIUM_PATH | Path to Chrome/Chromium executable. Auto-detected if not set. | Auto-detect | | INSECURE_TLS | Set to 1 to accept self-signed certificates. | 0 (disabled) |

Auto-detection checks these paths in order:

/usr/bin/google-chrome
/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable
/usr/bin/chromium
/usr/bin/chromium-browser

Tool

fetch_page

Fetch and render a web page. Returns the absolute path to a local markdown file containing the page content with downloaded images embedded as local file paths.

Parameters:

| Parameter | Type | Required | Description | |---|---|---|---| | url | string | yes | Target page URL |

Returns: Absolute path to a .md file in the local tmp directory.

Example response:

/home/user/project/dist/.tmp/weblens/327c3fda87ce286848a574982ddd0b7c7487f816.md

Generated markdown format:

# Page Title

Source: https://example.com/article

> Article excerpt or description

Article body text content...

## Images

![alt text](/home/user/project/dist/.tmp/weblens/abc123.png)
![another image](/home/user/project/dist/.tmp/weblens/def456.jpg)

Behavior:

• Renders the page with Playwright (headless Chrome)
• Blocks media and font requests for faster loading
• Extracts article content using Mozilla Readability when possible
• Downloads page images (skips icons smaller than 50x50px)
• Writes markdown with local image paths to dist/.tmp/weblens/
• Files older than 6 hours are automatically cleaned up

Local development

npm install
npm run build
node dist/index.js

How it works

URL
 └→ Playwright renders page (headless Chrome)
     └→ Extract title, text, HTML, images from DOM
         └→ Mozilla Readability extracts clean article content
             └→ Download images to dist/.tmp/weblens/
                 └→ Compose markdown with local image paths
                     └→ Write .md file, return path

Tmp directory

Downloaded assets and markdown files are stored in dist/.tmp/weblens/. Cleanup runs automatically:

• On every fetch_page call (throttled to every 5 minutes)
• Files older than 6 hours (by mtime) are deleted
• No external cron or scheduler needed

Docker

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "weblens": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run", "-i", "--rm", "--init",
        "-v", "/tmp/weblens:/app/dist/.tmp/weblens",
        "weblens-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

License

ISC