Newsintel

What the newsintel MCP server does

The newsintel MCP server exposes selected NewsIntel API operations as MCP tools. It is intended for AI clients that need structured access to personalized news intelligence without implementing the REST requests themselves.

The integration connects to the NewsIntel API, which aggregates RSS feeds from more than 20 sources along with GDELT, Guardian API data, and X-related signals. The broader service applies deduplication, normalization, recency weighting, source reliability scoring, and bias-diversity filtering before delivering news. The MCP integration gives an agent access to the profile and briefing functions described by the project.

How it works

The MCP server runs as a standalone Node process using the repository’s integrations/newsintel-mcp/server.mjs entry point. An MCP client launches that process and passes the NewsIntel API base URL through its environment. Tool calls then use the configured NewsIntel service rather than reading feeds directly from the client.

The available operations are sync_profile, get_profile, and get_news_briefing. Profile synchronization lets the connected workflow update the information used for personalization; profile retrieval returns the current profile; and briefing retrieval requests the agent-oriented news output. Authentication is handled by the NewsIntel API, which uses bearer API keys for protected endpoints.

Setup and configuration

The repository documents installation from the MCP integration directory:

cd integrations/newsintel-mcp && npm install

A client configuration can launch the server with Node and set NEWSINTEL_API_BASE. The documented example points this variable at https://newsintelapi.com:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "newsintel": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["integrations/newsintel-mcp/server.mjs"],
      "env": {
        "NEWSINTEL_API_BASE": "https://newsintelapi.com"
      }
    }
  }
}

The hosted service provides self-serve onboarding through its portal. The project also documents Docker and local-development options for running the wider NewsIntel API, but those are separate from installing the standalone MCP integration.

Tools and capabilities

• sync_profile: synchronizes a profile with the NewsIntel API.
• get_profile: retrieves the configured profile.
• get_news_briefing: requests a news briefing for agent use.

The underlying API also exposes briefing, agent-optimized briefing, news search, profile synchronization, and key-management endpoints. Only the three operations listed above are identified as tools for this MCP integration. NewsIntel’s agent endpoint and MCP delivery are designed to return digest-oriented results rather than unprocessed source feeds.

Limitations and notes

The newsintel MCP server depends on access to the NewsIntel API and its authentication model. The README’s MCP example specifies the API base URL but does not document a separate MCP-specific API-key environment variable. Protected NewsIntel requests require a bearer API key, so credentials and account setup may be needed even when the MCP process itself starts successfully.

The README names Claude Desktop, Cursor, and Windsurf as example MCP clients. It does not provide client-specific setup instructions beyond the generic server configuration. Source coverage, ranking behavior, and personalization are provided by NewsIntel’s hosted or self-hosted API rather than implemented locally by the MCP wrapper.