NewsBlog Composer MCP

Headline in, publishable post out.

Give it a news headline or a topic and it verifies the story is real, downloads the sources, extracts the facts with attribution, mines the keywords, writes the article, and builds the SEO, schema, banner prompt and publishing pack around it.

"Write me a blog post about <a headline from today>"

  verify_news          8 independent publishers, corroborated
  fetch_article_facts  facts, quotes and figures, each with its source URL
  seo_keywords         mined from the fetched text, not invented
  draft_brief          structure + facts -> the article gets written
  find_ai_words        stock phrasing flagged with the sentence it sits in
  build_publishing_pack   asks YOU which of 8 banner styles you want
  build_schema         NewsArticle + FAQPage JSON-LD, validated
  seo_audit            93/100, nothing must-fix
  save_and_present     the post, the checks, the image prompt, the files

What it actually guarantees

Two independent publishers, or it will not draft. Wire reprints are detected, so six outlets running one Reuters story are not mistaken for six sources, and a wide date spread downgrades confidence rather than passing silently.

Every fact traces to a source it fetched, not to a model's memory. Facts, quotes and figures carry their source_url, and build_schema rejects reference links that are aggregator redirects rather than real publisher URLs.

You choose the banner. With no style picked there is no image prompt in the result at all, and save_and_present refuses the package. The tool asks; it does not decide for you.

It will not hand you a post without the numbers. save_and_present refuses unless the SEO audit and the AI-word check have both run, so the finished post always arrives with its scores attached.

The prose is machine-written and the tool says so. Without a detector API key score_ai_text reports Not measured rather than inventing a reassuring number — a local style score measures cliche density and sentence rhythm, which is not a prediction of what a detector will say. If the byline is going to claim a person wrote it, that is your call to make with your eyes open; review_draft exists so the draft gets edited rather than published raw.

It runs with zero API keys. Every credential is an upgrade, not a requirement. See No keys? Start here.

Install

Claude Desktop — one click, no Python

1. Download newsblog-composer-<version>.mcpb from Releases.

2. Claude Desktop → Settings → Extensions → Advanced settings → Install Extension.

3. Toggle the extension off and on. On Windows the X button only minimises to the tray, so without this the old server keeps running.

4. Add this line to a Claude project's instructions, or to Customize so it applies to every chat:

   When I ask for a blog post, an article, or a news write-up, always use the NewsBlog Composer tools. Start with write_blog_post. Never search the web and draft the article yourself.

5. Ask for a post. It asks for your byline, company and blog domain once.

Step 4 is not optional. A host's system prompt reads "write me a blog post" as "search the web and make an artifact", and an MCP server's instructions field cannot outrank that — there is no API for a server to claim priority. Without the line the client answers from web search and never mentions the extension. Naming the server in the request works for one-offs.

Extensions are desktop only. On mobile or the web app there is nothing to call, and the client answers from web search without saying so.

From PyPI

pip install newsblog-composer-mcp

That gives you the newsblog-mcp command, which speaks MCP over stdio.

From source

git clone https://github.com/Mohammed-Jameal-J/newsblog-composer-mcp.git
cd newsblog-composer-mcp
python3 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate   # Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -e .
cp .env.example .env        # optional: every value in it is optional too

Check it reaches the network before wiring it into a client — if search is blocked by a proxy or VPN, this is where you find out:

python -m newsblog_mcp.diagnose "a headline you saw in the news today"

Connect it

VS Code

Create .vscode/mcp.json in your workspace:

{
  "servers": {
    "newsblog": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "newsblog-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Reload the window, then open Chat in Agent mode — the tools appear under the tools picker. Use the full path to newsblog-mcp (or to the venv's Python with "args": ["-m", "newsblog_mcp.server"]) if the command is not on your PATH.

Claude Code

.mcp.json in your project:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "newsblog": {
      "command": "newsblog-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop, configured by hand

%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json on Windows, ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "newsblog": {
      "command": "newsblog-mcp"
    }
  }
}

The .mcpb above does this for you and is the easier route.

Anything else

Launch newsblog-mcp (or python -m newsblog_mcp.server) and speak MCP over stdio. For a remote client, newsblog-mcp --http serves a streamable HTTP endpoint — see Publishing and connecting.

Where it keeps your files

Installed from PyPI, the server writes to your user data directory, so nothing is lost when you upgrade:

That folder holds profile.json (the identity you set at first run), output/ (every generated post) and an optional .env. Set NEWSBLOG_DATA_DIR to put them somewhere else. Run from a cloned checkout instead and everything stays in the project folder, beside the code.

python -m newsblog_mcp.diagnose prints the exact paths for your install.

Publishing and connecting

Claude Desktop / Claude Code run it over stdio, which is what the install section above sets up.

ChatGPT cannot spawn a local process, so stdio will never reach it. Run the same server over HTTP and deploy it behind HTTPS:

newsblog-composer-mcp --http --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000

Then in ChatGPT: Settings → Connectors → Advanced → Developer mode, then Add custom connector pointing at https://your-host/mcp. Custom connectors need a Pro, Team, Enterprise or Edu plan.

Publishing to the MCP Registry needs the package on PyPI first, then the mcp-publisher CLI with server.json in this repo. Four things must line up or the publish is rejected:

• name must match the authenticated GitHub account: io.github.<username>/newsblog-composer
• description must be 100 characters or fewer
• packages[].version must be a release that already exists on PyPI
• the README must carry mcp-name: <that same name> on its own line. The registry proves package ownership by reading the description PyPI serves for that exact version, so the marker has to be in the release you uploaded, not just in the repo. It is the HTML comment at the top of this file.

How to test it

Three levels, cheapest first.

1. Offline, no network — proves the logic.

python tests\smoke_test.py

272 checks covering schema parity, the SEO audit, AI-word detection, publisher identity behind aggregator links, clustering, the publishing pack, the derived image concept, the trademark filter and the install paths. All should pass in about two seconds.

2. Network — proves search reaches you.

python -m newsblog_mcp.diagnose "a headline you saw in the news today"

One line per provider with timings, then the verdict. What you want to see is independent_publishers naming several real outlets and reference_candidates holding real publisher URLs.

3. A whole post, end to end.

python examples\build_today_example.py

Builds a complete package from a real story using facts already in the file, and prints the keywords, schema validation, AI-word check, human score and SEO score before writing the output folder. Use it as the reference for what a good run looks like. examples\build_mistral_example.py does the same for the hand-written reference post.

4. In Claude Desktop, after restarting it. Say it the way you normally would — you should not have to name the tools:

Write me a blog post about ""