Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) - MCP News Server

Q: What is an MCP Server? A: MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open protocol that standardizes how applications provide context to LLMs. An MCP server acts as a bridge, allowing AI models to access and interact with external data sources and tools.

Q: What is the UBOS Asset Marketplace? A: The UBOS Asset Marketplace is a platform where developers can share and discover reusable components, like the MCP News Server, to accelerate AI Agent development.

Q: What categories of news articles are available? A: The server provides articles categorized into tech, data_science, llm_tools, cybersecurity, linux, audio_dsp, startups, news, science, research, and policy.

Q: How do I access news articles using the MCP News Server? A: You can access articles using the resource URI: news://{category}/{limit}, where {category} is the desired news category and {limit} is the maximum number of articles to return.

Q: How do I configure the MCP News Server? A: Configuration is done through environment variables, such as DATABASE_URL for the PostgreSQL database connection and OPENAI_API_KEY for summarization logic. Other configurations include LOOKBACK_HOURS, SUMMARY_WORD_TARGET, MAX_ARTICLES_PER_SUMMARY, and KEYWORD_FILTER.

Q: How do I populate the database with news articles? A: Run the news_gatherer.py script, which collects news articles from various RSS feeds and stores them in the database. This script is intended to be run separately/scheduled.

Q: Does the server summarize news articles? A: The server has internal summarization logic, but it is currently not exposed via an MCP prompt. The summarize_news tool retrieves raw articles, allowing client LLMs to perform summarization.

Q: How can I debug the MCP News Server? A: The MCP Inspector is strongly recommended for debugging, as MCP servers run over stdio. You can launch it using npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uv --directory ~/dev/news-mcp run news-mcp.

Q: How do I install the MCP News Server for development? A: Configure your Claude Desktop’s claude_desktop_config.json file to point to your local development directory. Refer to the documentation for specific examples for development/unpublished and published server configurations.

Q: How do I contribute to the MCP News Server project? A: Contributions are welcome! Follow the development process, including syncing dependencies, building packages, and publishing to PyPI. See the development section in the documentation for details.