Website Downloader (Windows) MCP server

The MCP Website Downloader is a simple server application designed to download documentation websites and prepare them for RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) indexing. It maintains the website structure while collecting all necessary assets for offline access and AI processing.

Installation and Setup

Prerequisites

• Python environment
• UV package manager

Installation Steps

1. Fork and download the repository, then navigate to the folder:

cd mcp-windows-website-downloader

2. Create and activate a virtual environment:

uv venv
./venv/Scripts/activate

3. Install the package in development mode:

pip install -e .

Configuration

Add the MCP configuration to your claude_desktop_config.json file (modify paths as needed):

"mcp-windows-website-downloader": {
  "command": "uv",
  "args": [
    "--directory",
    "F:/GithubRepos/mcp-windows-website-downloader",
    "run",
    "mcp-windows-website-downloader",
    "--library",
    "F:/GithubRepos/mcp-windows-website-downloader/website_library"
  ]
}

Usage

Starting the Server

You can start the server directly with Python:

python -m mcp_windows_website_downloader.server --library docs_library

Using the MCP Server

The server can be used through Claude Desktop or other MCP clients:

result = await server.call_tool("download", {
    "url": "https://docs.example.com"
})

Output Structure

When you download a website, the server creates the following directory structure:

docs_library/
  domain_name/
    index.html
    about.html
    docs/
      getting-started.html
      ...
    assets/
      css/
      js/
      images/
      fonts/
    rag_index.json

Understanding Responses

Success Response

When a download succeeds, you'll receive:

{
  "status": "success",
  "path": "/path/to/downloaded/site",
  "pages": 42
}

Error Response

If an error occurs, you'll receive:

{
  "status": "error",
  "error": "Detailed error message"
}

Common Error Scenarios

The server handles several common issues:

• Invalid URLs
• Network errors
• Asset download failures
• Malformed HTML
• Deep recursion
• File system errors

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "mcp-windows-website-downloader" '{"command":"uv","args":["--directory","F:/GithubRepos/mcp-windows-website-downloader","run","mcp-windows-website-downloader","--library","F:/GithubRepos/mcp-windows-website-downloader/website_library"]}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "mcp-windows-website-downloader": {
            "command": "uv",
            "args": [
                "--directory",
                "F:/GithubRepos/mcp-windows-website-downloader",
                "run",
                "mcp-windows-website-downloader",
                "--library",
                "F:/GithubRepos/mcp-windows-website-downloader/website_library"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "mcp-windows-website-downloader": {
            "command": "uv",
            "args": [
                "--directory",
                "F:/GithubRepos/mcp-windows-website-downloader",
                "run",
                "mcp-windows-website-downloader",
                "--library",
                "F:/GithubRepos/mcp-windows-website-downloader/website_library"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect