Fetch and convert web pages to markdown for LLM consumption

Fetch MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol server that provides web content fetching capabilities. This server enables LLMs to retrieve and process content from web pages, converting HTML to markdown for easier consumption.

Source: https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers/tree/main/src/fetch

Requires MCP Python SDK 1.x (mcp>=1.29.0,<2). SDK 2.0 renamed APIs this server uses. The port to v2 is in progress.

The fetch tool will truncate the response, but by using the start_index argument, you can specify where to start the content extraction. This lets models read a webpage in chunks, until they find the information they need.

Available Tools

• fetch - Fetches a URL from the internet and extracts its contents as markdown.
  • url (string, required): URL to fetch
  • max_length (integer, optional): Maximum number of characters to return (default: 5000)
  • start_index (integer, optional): Start content from this character index (default: 0)
  • raw (boolean, optional): Get raw content without markdown conversion (default: false)

Prompts

• fetch
  • Fetch a URL and extract its contents as markdown
  • Arguments:
    • url (string, required): URL to fetch

Installation

Optionally: Install node.js, this will cause the fetch server to use a different HTML simplifier that is more robust.

Using uv (recommended)

When using uv no specific installation is needed. We will
use uvx to directly run mcp-server-fetch.

Using PIP

Alternatively you can install mcp-server-fetch via pip:

pip install mcp-server-fetch

After installation, you can run it as a script using:

python -m mcp_server_fetch

Configuration

Configure for Claude.app

Add to your Claude settings:

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

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

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fetch": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["-m", "mcp_server_fetch"]
    }
  }
}

Configure for VS Code

For quick installation, use one of the one-click install buttons below...

For manual installation, add the following JSON block to your User Settings (JSON) file in VS Code. You can do this by pressing Ctrl + Shift + P and typing Preferences: Open User Settings (JSON).

Optionally, you can add it to a file called .vscode/mcp.json in your workspace. This will allow you to share the configuration with others.

Note that the mcp key is needed when using the mcp.json file.

{
  "mcp": {
    "servers": {
      "fetch": {
        "command": "uvx",
        "args": ["mcp-server-fetch"]
      }
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcp": {
    "servers": {
      "fetch": {
        "command": "docker",
        "args": ["run", "-i", "--rm", "mcp/fetch"]
      }
    }
  }
}

Customization - robots.txt

By default, the server will obey a websites robots.txt file if the request came from the model (via a tool), but not if
the request was user initiated (via a prompt). This can be disabled by adding the argument --ignore-robots-txt to the
args list in the configuration.

Customization - User-agent

By default, depending on if the request came from the model (via a tool), or was user initiated (via a prompt), the
server will use either the user-agent

ModelContextProtocol/1.0 (Autonomous; +https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers)

or

ModelContextProtocol/1.0 (User-Specified; +https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers)

This can be customized by adding the argument --user-agent=YourUserAgent to the args list in the configuration.

Customization - Proxy

The server can be configured to use a proxy by using the --proxy-url argument.

Windows Configuration

If you're experiencing timeout issues on Windows, you may need to set the PYTHONIOENCODING environment variable to ensure proper character encoding:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fetch": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["mcp-server-fetch"],
      "env": {
        "PYTHONIOENCODING": "utf-8"
      }
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fetch": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["-m", "mcp_server_fetch"],
      "env": {
        "PYTHONIOENCODING": "utf-8"
      }
    }
  }
}

This addresses character encoding issues that can cause the server to timeout on Windows systems.

Debugging

You can use the MCP inspector to debug the server. For uvx installations:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uvx mcp-server-fetch

Or if you've installed the package in a specific directory or are developing on it:

cd path/to/servers/src/fetch
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uv run mcp-server-fetch