Hotnews (Chinese Social) MCP server

The HotNews MCP Server provides real-time hot trending topics from major Chinese social platforms and news sites. It's compatible with the Model Context Protocol (MCP), making it easy to integrate with AI models and access trending information from multiple Chinese platforms in markdown format.

Supported Platforms

The server gathers trending topics from 9 major Chinese platforms:

1. Zhihu Hot List (知乎热榜)
2. 36Kr Hot List (36氪热榜)
3. Baidu Hot Discussion (百度热点)
4. Bilibili Hot List (B站热榜)
5. Weibo Hot Search (微博热搜)
6. Douyin Hot List (抖音热点)
7. Hupu Hot List (虎扑热榜)
8. Douban Hot List (豆瓣热榜)
9. IT News (IT新闻)

Installation Options

Using NPX

The easiest way to use the HotNews MCP server is via NPX. Add the following to your MCP configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-server-hotnews": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@wopal/mcp-server-hotnews"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Using Docker

You can also run the server using Docker, but you'll need to build the image yourself:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-server-hotnews": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "wopal/mcp-server-hotnews"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Using the MCP Server

The server provides a single tool called get_hot_news that accepts a list of platform IDs as arguments.

Tool Parameters

• get_hot_news
  • sources - Required parameter: A list of platform IDs (numbers from 1-9)

Usage Examples

Get trending topics from Baidu only:

get_hot_news([3])

Get trending topics from Zhihu, Baidu, and Hupu:

get_hot_news([1,3,7])

Get trending topics from Zhihu, 36Kr, Baidu, and Bilibili:

get_hot_news([1,2,3,4])

Platform ID Reference

When using the get_hot_news tool, use these IDs to specify the platforms:

• 1: Zhihu Hot List
• 2: 36Kr Hot List
• 3: Baidu Hot Discussion
• 4: Bilibili Hot List
• 5: Weibo Hot Search
• 6: Douyin Hot List
• 7: Hupu Hot List
• 8: Douban Hot List
• 9: IT News

The server returns results in markdown format with clickable links and heat index information where available.

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-server-hotnews" '{"command":"npx","args":["-y","@wopal/mcp-server-hotnews"]}'

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-server-hotnews": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "@wopal/mcp-server-hotnews"
            ]
        }
    }
}

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-server-hotnews": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "@wopal/mcp-server-hotnews"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect