Fetch MCP Server

An MCP server for fetching web content in multiple formats — HTML, JSON, plain text, Markdown, readable article content, and YouTube transcripts.

Tools

All tools accept the following common parameters:

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`url`	string	Yes	URL to fetch
`headers`	object	No	Custom headers to include in the request
`max_length`	number	No	Maximum characters to return (default: 5000)
`start_index`	number	No	Start from this character index (default: 0)
`proxy`	string	No	Proxy URL (e.g. `http://proxy:8080`)

fetch_html — Fetch a website and return its raw HTML content.
fetch_markdown — Fetch a website and return its content converted to Markdown.
fetch_txt — Fetch a website and return plain text with HTML tags, scripts, and styles removed.
fetch_json — Fetch a URL and return the JSON response.
fetch_readable — Fetch a website and extract the main article content using Mozilla Readability, returned as Markdown. Strips navigation, ads, and boilerplate. Ideal for articles and blog posts.
fetch_youtube_transcript — Fetch a YouTube video's captions/transcript. Uses yt-dlp if available, otherwise extracts directly from the page. Accepts an additional lang parameter (default: "en") to select the caption language.

Installation

As an MCP server

Add to your MCP client configuration:

config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fetch": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["mcp-fetch-server"]
    }
  }
}

As a CLI

Terminal

npx mcp-fetch <command> <url> [flags]

Or install globally:

Terminal

npm install -g mcp-fetch-server
mcp-fetch <command> <url> [flags]

CLI Usage

Code

mcp-fetch <command> <url> [flags]

Commands

Command	Description
`html`	Fetch a URL and return raw HTML
`markdown`	Fetch a URL and return Markdown
`readable`	Fetch a URL and return article content as Markdown (via Readability)
`txt`	Fetch a URL and return plain text
`json`	Fetch a URL and return JSON
`youtube`	Fetch a YouTube video transcript

Flags

Flag	Description
`--max-length <N>`	Maximum characters to return
`--start-index <N>`	Start from this character index
`--proxy <URL>`	Proxy URL
`--lang <code>`	Language code for YouTube transcripts (default: `en`)
`--help`	Show help message
`--version`	Show version

Examples

bash

# Fetch a page as markdown
mcp-fetch markdown https://example.com

# Extract article content without boilerplate
mcp-fetch readable https://example.com/blog/post

# Get a YouTube transcript in Spanish
mcp-fetch youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ --lang es

# Fetch with a length limit
mcp-fetch html https://example.com --max-length 10000

# Fetch through a proxy
mcp-fetch json https://api.example.com/data --proxy http://proxy:8080

Environment Variables

Variable	Description
`DEFAULT_LIMIT`	Default character limit for responses (default: `5000`, set to `0` for no limit)
`MAX_RESPONSE_BYTES`	Maximum response body size in bytes (default: `10485760` / 10 MB)

Example with a custom limit:

config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fetch": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["mcp-fetch-server"],
      "env": {
        "DEFAULT_LIMIT": "50000"
      }
    }
  }
}

Features

Fetch web content as HTML, JSON, plain text, or Markdown
Extract article content with Mozilla Readability (strips ads, nav, boilerplate)
Extract YouTube video transcripts (via yt-dlp or direct extraction)
Proxy support for requests behind firewalls
Pagination with max_length and start_index
Custom request headers
SSRF protection (blocks private/localhost addresses and DNS rebinding)
Response size limits to prevent memory exhaustion

Development

bash

bun install
bun run dev     # start with watch mode
bun test        # run tests
bun run build   # build for production

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.