Web Fetch MCP server

The Fetch MCP Server provides functionality to fetch web content in various formats, including HTML, JSON, plain text, and Markdown. It allows you to retrieve and transform web content on demand without any persistent resources.

Installation

To get started with the Fetch MCP Server, follow these steps:

1. Clone the repository
2. Install dependencies:

   npm install
   

3. Build the server:

   npm run build
   

Running the Server

To run the server directly:

npm start

This will start the Fetch MCP Server running on stdio.

Integration with Desktop App

To integrate this server with a desktop app, add the following to your app's server configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fetch": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": [
        "{ABSOLUTE PATH TO FILE HERE}/dist/index.js"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Available Tools

The server provides four main tools for fetching content:

Fetch HTML

Retrieves a website and returns the content as HTML.

Input parameters:

• url (string, required): URL of the website to fetch
• headers (object, optional): Custom headers to include in the request

Returns: Raw HTML content of the webpage

Fetch JSON

Retrieves and parses a JSON file from a URL.

Input parameters:

• url (string, required): URL of the JSON to fetch
• headers (object, optional): Custom headers to include in the request

Returns: Parsed JSON content

Fetch Text

Retrieves a website and returns the content as plain text with HTML tags removed.

Input parameters:

• url (string, required): URL of the website to fetch
• headers (object, optional): Custom headers to include in the request

Returns: Text content of the webpage with HTML tags, scripts, and styles removed

Fetch Markdown

Retrieves a website and returns the content converted to Markdown format.

Input parameters:

• url (string, required): URL of the website to fetch
• headers (object, optional): Custom headers to include in the request

Returns: Content of the webpage converted to Markdown format

Key Features

• Fetches web content using modern fetch API
• Supports custom headers for all requests
• Provides content in multiple formats: HTML, JSON, plain text, and Markdown
• Uses JSDOM for HTML parsing and text extraction
• Uses TurndownService for HTML to Markdown conversion

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 "fetch" '{"command":"node","args":["{ABSOLUTE PATH TO FILE HERE}/dist/index.js"]}'

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": {
        "fetch": {
            "command": "node",
            "args": [
                "{ABSOLUTE PATH TO FILE HERE}/dist/index.js"
            ]
        }
    }
}

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": {
        "fetch": {
            "command": "node",
            "args": [
                "{ABSOLUTE PATH TO FILE HERE}/dist/index.js"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect