mcp-ai-news-server by iamgaru - MCP Server

MCP AI News Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that fetches and filters AI-related news from 20+ RSS feeds with scheduled notifications and email digests. Get your daily AI news delivered automatically via desktop notifications or email!

Features

20+ News Sources: TechCrunch, Hacker News, arXiv, Google AI, NVIDIA, VentureBeat, and more
📅 Scheduled Digests: Automatic daily/weekly news delivery at your preferred time
🔔 Desktop Notifications: Native system notifications with news summaries
📧 Email Digests: Beautiful HTML emails with latest AI news
AI News Filtering: Automatically filters content for AI/ML-related keywords
Category Selection: Choose from Tech, AI, Research, Community, or Hacker News categories
Custom Source Selection: Pick specific sources for targeted news
Keyword Search: Search across all sources for specific topics
Parallel Fetching: Fast performance by fetching multiple feeds simultaneously
MCP Integration: Works seamlessly with Claude Desktop
Timezone Support: Configure for Australian Eastern or any timezone

Installation

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build the project
npm run build

🚀 Quick Start: Notifications

Set Up Daily Digest

1. Enable desktop notifications
2. Configure schedule for 8 AM daily in Australia/Sydney
3. Send me a test digest now

That's it! You'll now get AI news every morning at 8 AM.

See for complete setup guide including email configuration.

News Sources

20 sources across 5 categories:

Hacker News (2): Latest posts, Front page
Tech News (6): TechCrunch, Ars Technica, The Verge, Wired, Engadget, ZDNet
AI Publications (6): MIT Tech Review, VentureBeat, AI Trends, Google AI, NVIDIA, Microsoft AI
Research (3): arXiv AI, arXiv ML, arXiv Computational Linguistics
Community (3): Dev.to, Medium AI, Medium ML

See for complete details on all sources and usage patterns.

Available Tools

1. `get_ai_news`

Fetches recent AI-related news from multiple RSS feeds with automatic filtering.

Parameters:

limit (optional, default: 10): Maximum number of items to return
category (optional, default: "all"): Feed category - "all", "hackernews", "tech", "ai", "research", or "community"
sources (optional): Array of specific feed sources (overrides category)

Example Response:

Found 3 AI-related items from 6 source(s):

1. What could possibly go wrong if an enterprise replaces all its engineers with AI?
   Source: venturebeat
   https://venturebeat.com/ai/what-could-possibly-go-wrong...
   Published: Sat, 08 Nov 2025 05:00:00 GMT

2. Terminal-Bench 2.0 launches alongside Harbor
   Source: venturebeat
   https://venturebeat.com/ai/terminal-bench-2-0...
   Published: Fri, 07 Nov 2025 23:25:00 GMT

2. `search_news`

Search for news items matching specific keywords across multiple sources.

Parameters:

keywords (required): Keywords to search for (comma-separated)
limit (optional, default: 10): Maximum number of items to return
category (optional, default: "all"): Feed category to search
sources (optional): Array of specific feed sources to search

Example:

Keywords: "gpt-4, chatgpt"
Category: "ai"

3. `list_sources`

List all available news sources and categories.

No parameters required - returns complete list of 20 sources organized by category.

4. `configure_schedule`

Set up scheduled digest delivery.

Parameters:

enabled (boolean): Enable/disable scheduler
cronExpression (string): When to send (e.g., "0 8 * * *" for 8 AM daily)
timezone (string): Your timezone (e.g., "Australia/Sydney")
category (string): News category for digest
limit (number): Number of items in digest

Example:

Configure schedule: enabled true, 8 AM daily, Australia/Sydney timezone

5. `configure_notifications`

Configure email and desktop notification settings.

Parameters:

desktop (object): Desktop notification settings
email (object): Email notification settings

Example:

Enable desktop notifications
Configure email to user@example.com

6. `send_digest_now`

Send a digest immediately (testing or on-demand).

Parameters:

desktop (boolean): Send desktop notification
email (boolean): Send email notification

Example:

Send me a digest now
Send digest via email only

7. `get_config`

View current configuration including schedule and notification settings.

Example:

Show my notification settings
What's my schedule configuration?

Testing

Method 1: Testing with Claude Desktop

Step 1: Configure Claude Desktop

Add the server to your Claude Desktop configuration file:

macOS Location:

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

Windows Location:

%APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ai-news": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/mcp-ai-news-server/build/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Important: Replace /absolute/path/to/mcp-ai-news-server with your actual project path.

To get your absolute path, run:

pwd

Step 2: Restart Claude Desktop

Completely quit and restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect.

Step 3: Verify Installation

In Claude Desktop, look for the hammer icon (🔨) in the input area, which indicates MCP tools are available.

Step 4: Test the Tools

Try these prompts in Claude Desktop:

Basic queries:

Get me the latest AI news
List all available news sources
Show me AI news from tech publications

Category-specific:

Get AI news from research sources
Show me news from AI company blogs
What's new on Hacker News about AI?

Advanced searches:

Search for "GPT-4" across all sources
Find news about "ChatGPT" in tech publications
Look for "transformer" in research papers
Get 15 AI news items from TechCrunch and VentureBeat

Method 2: Testing with MCP Inspector

The MCP Inspector provides a debugging interface for testing MCP servers.

Install MCP Inspector:

npm install -g @modelcontextprotocol/inspector

Run Inspector:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector node build/index.js

This will open a web interface where you can:

View available tools
Test tool calls with custom parameters
See request/response logs
Debug server behavior

Method 3: Testing Standalone (Manual Testing)

You can test the server directly using Node.js with JSON-RPC messages.

Create a test script `test.js`:

import { spawn } from 'child_process';

const server = spawn('node', ['build/index.js']);

// Send initialize request
const initRequest = {
  jsonrpc: '2.0',
  id: 1,
  method: 'initialize',
  params: {
    protocolVersion: '2024-11-05',
    capabilities: {},
    clientInfo: { name: 'test-client', version: '1.0.0' }
  }
};

server.stdin.write(JSON.stringify(initRequest) + '\n');

// Send list tools request
setTimeout(() => {
  const listToolsRequest = {
    jsonrpc: '2.0',
    id: 2,
    method: 'tools/list',
    params: {}
  };
  server.stdin.write(JSON.stringify(listToolsRequest) + '\n');
}, 1000);

// Send call tool request
setTimeout(() => {
  const callToolRequest = {
    jsonrpc: '2.0',
    id: 3,
    method: 'tools/call',
    params: {
      name: 'get_ai_news',
      arguments: { limit: 5, source: 'newest' }
    }
  };
  server.stdin.write(JSON.stringify(callToolRequest) + '\n');
}, 2000);

server.stdout.on('data', (data) => {
  console.log('Response:', data.toString());
});

server.stderr.on('data', (data) => {
  console.error('Server log:', data.toString());
});

setTimeout(() => {
  server.kill();
}, 5000);

Run the test:

node test.js

Method 4: Testing with curl (JSON-RPC over stdio)

For quick testing, you can send JSON-RPC messages directly:

# Start the server
node build/index.js

# In another terminal, send a test message (note: this is complex for stdio)
echo '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list","params":{}}' | node build/index.js

Development

Project Structure

mcp-ai-news-server/
├── src/
│   └── index.ts          # Main server implementation
├── build/                # Compiled JavaScript (generated)
├── package.json          # Dependencies and scripts
├── tsconfig.json         # TypeScript configuration
└── README.md            # This file

Development Mode

# Watch mode (rebuild on changes)
npm run dev

Scripts

npm run build - Compile TypeScript to JavaScript
npm run start - Run the compiled server
npm run dev - Build and run in one command

AI Keywords

The server filters content based on these keywords:

ai, artificial intelligence
machine learning, ml
deep learning
neural network
llm, gpt, chatgpt
claude, gemini
openai, anthropic
generative
transformer
nlp
computer vision
reinforcement learning

Troubleshooting

Server not appearing in Claude Desktop

Check config file path: Ensure you're editing the correct claude_desktop_config.json
Verify absolute path: The path in the config must be absolute, not relative
Check build: Run npm run build to ensure the server is compiled
Restart Claude Desktop: Completely quit and reopen the application
Check logs: Look at Claude Desktop's logs for errors

Finding Claude Desktop Logs

macOS:

~/Library/Logs/Claude/

Windows:

%APPDATA%/Claude/logs/

Testing if server starts correctly

node build/index.js
# Should output: "AI News MCP Server running on stdio"
# Press Ctrl+C to exit

RSS Feed Issues

If the RSS feeds are slow or unavailable:

Check your internet connection
The Hacker News RSS feeds might be temporarily down
Try again in a few minutes

Environment

Node.js: v20+ recommended
TypeScript: v5+
MCP SDK: v1.0.0+

License

MIT

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Please feel free to submit issues or pull requests.

iamgaru/mcp-ai-news-server