gdelt-mcp-server

Get GDELT TV Context

gdelt_get_tv_context

Read-only

Get the top co-occurring words and phrases from TV news clips matching a query — the vocabulary framing a topic on television. Returns the most frequent non-stopword terms with relative frequency scores (0–100, where 100 = the query term itself). Terms and scores come from GDELT's relevance-ranked sample of matching clips, documented as the 200 most relevant, not all matching coverage — compare windows or stations with a separate, narrower call for each. Use to understand narrative framing, identify related concepts mentioned alongside a topic, or generate follow-up search terms. TV data spans 2009–October 2024.

Input Schema

TableJSON Schema

Name	Required	Description
`query`	Yes	Search query for TV transcript content. Same TV operators as gdelt_search_tv: station:CNN, network:CBS, market:"National", show:"Anderson Cooper", context:"vaccine".
`stations`	No	Station IDs to filter to (e.g. ["CNN", "FOXNEWS"]). The GDELT TV API requires at least one station — supply it here, or embed a station: selector directly in query. Omitting both is rejected; it does not fall back to all stations. Use gdelt_list_tv_stations to see valid IDs.
`timespan`	No	Time window, e.g. "1m", "6m". Ignored when startDatetime/endDatetime are set. TV data spans 2009–October 2024.
`endDatetime`	No	End datetime in GDELT format YYYYMMDDHHMMSS — exactly 14 digits, no separators (e.g. 20200131235959). Must pair with startDatetime; supplying only one of the two is rejected.
`startDatetime`	No	Start datetime in GDELT format YYYYMMDDHHMMSS — exactly 14 digits, no separators (e.g. 20200101000000). Must pair with endDatetime; supplying only one of the two is rejected. TV data spans 2009–October 2024.

Output Schema

TableJSON Schema

Name	Required	Description
`error`	No	Present when the call failed. Absent on success.
`words`	No	Co-occurring terms from GDELT's relevance-ranked sample of matching clips, documented as the 200 most relevant, not all matching coverage, sorted by score descending.
`notice`	No	On every non-empty result, that terms and scores come from GDELT's relevance-ranked sample of matching clips, documented as the 200 most relevant, not all matching coverage — compare windows or stations with a separate, narrower call for each. When no clips matched, so there is no vocabulary to report, the resolved timespan window, the October 2024 archive cutoff, and how to broaden the query or check station coverage.
`totalCount`	No	Number of clips from which co-occurrences were computed. Absent when the upstream API does not return a clip count.
`effectiveQuery`	No	Echoed query string for use in follow-up calls.

Schema Changelog

Changes observed during successful MCP inspections.

Changed3 schema fields changedOct 14, 2026

changedOutput schema / properties / notice / description

Previous value: -"Guidance when no clips matched, so there is no vocabulary to report — the resolved timespan window, the October 2024 archive cutoff, and how to broaden the query or check station coverage. Absent when terms were returned."New value: +"On every non-empty result, that terms and scores come from GDELT's relevance-ranked sample of matching clips, documented as the 200 most relevant, not all matching coverage — compare windows or stations with a separate, narrower call for each. When no clips matched, so there is no vocabulary to report, the resolved timespan window, the October 2024 archive cutoff, and how to broaden the query or check station coverage."

changedOutput schema / properties / words / description

Previous value: -"Co-occurring terms sorted by score descending."New value: +"Co-occurring terms from GDELT's relevance-ranked sample of matching clips, documented as the 200 most relevant, not all matching coverage, sorted by score descending."

changedOutput schema / properties / words / items / properties / score / description

Previous value: -"Relative frequency score (0–100). The query term itself scores 100; other terms are proportional to their co-occurrence frequency."New value: +"Relative frequency score (0–100). The query term itself scores 100; other terms are proportional to their co-occurrence frequency within GDELT's relevance-ranked sample of matching clips, documented as the 200 most relevant, not all matching coverage."

Changed3 schema fields changedSep 24, 2026

changedOutput schema / properties / error / properties / data / properties / reason / description

Previous value: -"Machine-readable failure mode. Declared by this tool: `no_context`: No context words found — no clips matched the query. `invalid_date_range`: Only one of startDatetime / endDatetime was supplied, one of them is not a real UTC calendar timestamp, or startDatetime is not earlier than endDatetime. `invalid_query`: GDELT rejected the query — no station was selected, or the query string is malformed. `gdelt_rate_limited`: GDELT rejected the request for its one-request-per-five-seconds limit, or too many requests were already queued for this one to start in time. `gdelt_unavailable`: GDELT TV API is unreachable or temporarily returned no usable data. Other values are possible when a failure originates below the handler."New value: +"Machine-readable failure mode. Declared by this tool: `invalid_date_range`: Only one of startDatetime / endDatetime was supplied, one of them is not a real UTC calendar timestamp, or startDatetime is not earlier than endDatetime. `invalid_query`: GDELT rejected the query — no station was selected, or the query string is malformed. `gdelt_rate_limited`: GDELT rejected the request for its one-request-per-five-seconds limit, or too many requests were already queued for this one to start in time. `gdelt_unavailable`: GDELT TV API is unreachable or temporarily returned no usable data. Other values are possible when a failure originates below the handler."

changedOutput schema / properties / error / properties / data / properties / reason / examples

Previous value: -[
-  "no_context",
-  "invalid_date_range",
-  "invalid_query",
-  "gdelt_rate_limited",
-  "gdelt_unavailable"
-]New value: +[
+  "invalid_date_range",
+  "invalid_query",
+  "gdelt_rate_limited",
+  "gdelt_unavailable"
+]

changedOutput schema / properties / notice / description

Previous value: -"Recovery hint when no context was found. Absent on successful responses."New value: +"Guidance when no clips matched, so there is no vocabulary to report — the resolved timespan window, the October 2024 archive cutoff, and how to broaden the query or check station coverage. Absent when terms were returned."

Changed1 schema field changedSep 22, 2026

changedOutput schema / properties / error / properties / data / properties / reason / description

Previous value: -"Machine-readable failure mode. Declared by this tool: `no_context`: No context words found — no clips matched the query. `invalid_date_range`: Exactly one of startDatetime / endDatetime was supplied. `invalid_query`: GDELT rejected the query — no station was selected, or the query string is malformed. `gdelt_rate_limited`: GDELT rejected the request for its one-request-per-five-seconds limit, or too many requests were already queued for this one to start in time. `gdelt_unavailable`: GDELT TV API is unreachable or temporarily returned no usable data. Other values are possible when a failure originates below the handler."New value: +"Machine-readable failure mode. Declared by this tool: `no_context`: No context words found — no clips matched the query. `invalid_date_range`: Only one of startDatetime / endDatetime was supplied, one of them is not a real UTC calendar timestamp, or startDatetime is not earlier than endDatetime. `invalid_query`: GDELT rejected the query — no station was selected, or the query string is malformed. `gdelt_rate_limited`: GDELT rejected the request for its one-request-per-five-seconds limit, or too many requests were already queued for this one to start in time. `gdelt_unavailable`: GDELT TV API is unreachable or temporarily returned no usable data. Other values are possible when a failure originates below the handler."

Changed1 schema field changedSep 19, 2026

changedOutput schema / properties / error / properties / data / properties / reason / description

Previous value: -"Machine-readable failure mode. Declared by this tool: `no_context`: No context words found — no clips matched the query. `invalid_date_range`: Exactly one of startDatetime / endDatetime was supplied. `invalid_query`: GDELT rejected the query — no station was selected, or the query string is malformed. `gdelt_rate_limited`: GDELT rejected the request because its one-request-per-five-seconds limit was reached. `gdelt_unavailable`: GDELT TV API is unreachable or temporarily returned no usable data. Other values are possible when a failure originates below the handler."New value: +"Machine-readable failure mode. Declared by this tool: `no_context`: No context words found — no clips matched the query. `invalid_date_range`: Exactly one of startDatetime / endDatetime was supplied. `invalid_query`: GDELT rejected the query — no station was selected, or the query string is malformed. `gdelt_rate_limited`: GDELT rejected the request for its one-request-per-five-seconds limit, or too many requests were already queued for this one to start in time. `gdelt_unavailable`: GDELT TV API is unreachable or temporarily returned no usable data. Other values are possible when a failure originates below the handler."

Changed2 schema fields changedAug 30, 2026

changedOutput schema / properties / error / properties / data / properties / reason / description

Previous value: -"Machine-readable failure mode. Declared by this tool: `no_context`: No context words found — no clips matched the query. `invalid_date_range`: Exactly one of startDatetime / endDatetime was supplied. `invalid_query`: GDELT rejected the query — no station was selected, or the query string is malformed. `gdelt_unavailable`: GDELT TV API is unreachable or rate-limited. Other values are possible when a failure originates below the handler."New value: +"Machine-readable failure mode. Declared by this tool: `no_context`: No context words found — no clips matched the query. `invalid_date_range`: Exactly one of startDatetime / endDatetime was supplied. `invalid_query`: GDELT rejected the query — no station was selected, or the query string is malformed. `gdelt_rate_limited`: GDELT rejected the request because its one-request-per-five-seconds limit was reached. `gdelt_unavailable`: GDELT TV API is unreachable or temporarily returned no usable data. Other values are possible when a failure originates below the handler."

changedOutput schema / properties / error / properties / data / properties / reason / examples

Previous value: -[
-  "no_context",
-  "invalid_date_range",
-  "invalid_query",
-  "gdelt_unavailable"
-]New value: +[
+  "no_context",
+  "invalid_date_range",
+  "invalid_query",
+  "gdelt_rate_limited",
+  "gdelt_unavailable"
+]

Changed6 schema fields changedAug 22, 2026

changedInput schema / $schema

Previous value: -"http://json-schema.org/draft-07/schema#"New value: +"https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema"

addedInput schema / additionalProperties
```
Added value: +false
```

changedOutput schema / $schema

Previous value: -"http://json-schema.org/draft-07/schema#"New value: +"https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema"

addedOutput schema / anyOf

Added value: +[
+  {
+    "not": {
+      "required": [
+        "error"
+      ]
+    },
+    "required": [
+      "words",
+      "effectiveQuery"
+    ]
+  },
+  {
+    "required": [
+      "error"
+    ]
+  }
+]

addedOutput schema / properties / error

Added value: +{
+  "additionalProperties": {},
+  "description": "Present when the call failed. Absent on success.",
+  "properties": {
+    "code": {
+      "description": "JSON-RPC error code for this failure.",
+      "maximum": 9007199254740991,
+      "minimum": -9007199254740991,
+      "type": "integer"
+    },
+    "data": {
+      "additionalProperties": {},
+      "properties": {
+        "reason": {
+          "description": "Machine-readable failure mode. Declared by this tool: `no_context`: No context words found — no clips matched the query. `invalid_date_range`: Exactly one of startDatetime / endDatetime was supplied. `invalid_query`: GDELT rejected the query — no station was selected, or the query string is malformed. `gdelt_unavailable`: GDELT TV API is unreachable or rate-limited. Other values are possible when a failure originates below the handler.",
+          "examples": [
+            "no_context",
+            "invalid_date_range",
+            "invalid_query",
+            "gdelt_unavailable"
+          ],
+          "type": "string"
+        },
+        "recovery": {
+          "additionalProperties": {},
+          "description": "Actionable next step for the caller.",
+          "properties": {
+            "hint": {
+              "type": "string"
+            }
+          },
+          "required": [
+            "hint"
+          ],
+          "type": "object"
+        },
+        "retryable": {
+          "description": "Whether retrying may succeed.",
+          "type": "boolean"
+        }
+      },
+      "type": "object"
+    },
+    "message": {
+      "description": "Human-readable description of what went wrong.",
+      "type": "string"
+    }
+  },
+  "required": [
+    "code",
+    "message"
+  ],
+  "type": "object"
+}

removedOutput schema / required

Removed value: -[
-  "words",
-  "effectiveQuery"
-]

Changed5 schema fields changedJul 16, 2026

changedInput schema / properties / endDatetime / description

Previous value: -"End datetime in GDELT format YYYYMMDDHHMMSS. Must pair with startDatetime."New value: +"End datetime in GDELT format YYYYMMDDHHMMSS — exactly 14 digits, no separators (e.g. 20200131235959). Must pair with startDatetime; supplying only one of the two is rejected."

addedInput schema / properties / endDatetime / pattern
```
Added value: +"^\\d{14}$"
```

changedInput schema / properties / startDatetime / description

Previous value: -"Start datetime in GDELT format YYYYMMDDHHMMSS. Must pair with endDatetime. TV data spans 2009–October 2024."New value: +"Start datetime in GDELT format YYYYMMDDHHMMSS — exactly 14 digits, no separators (e.g. 20200101000000). Must pair with endDatetime; supplying only one of the two is rejected. TV data spans 2009–October 2024."

addedInput schema / properties / startDatetime / pattern
```
Added value: +"^\\d{14}$"
```

changedInput schema / properties / stations / description

Previous value: -"Station IDs to filter to. Omit for all stations. Use gdelt_list_tv_stations to see valid IDs."New value: +"Station IDs to filter to (e.g. [\"CNN\", \"FOXNEWS\"]). The GDELT TV API requires at least one station — supply it here, or embed a station: selector directly in query. Omitting both is rejected; it does not fall back to all stations. Use gdelt_list_tv_stations to see valid IDs."

Changed3 schema fields changedJun 8, 2026

addedInput schema / properties / endDatetime

Added value: +{
+  "description": "End datetime in GDELT format YYYYMMDDHHMMSS. Must pair with startDatetime.",
+  "type": "string"
+}

addedInput schema / properties / startDatetime

Added value: +{
+  "description": "Start datetime in GDELT format YYYYMMDDHHMMSS. Must pair with endDatetime. TV data spans 2009–October 2024.",
+  "type": "string"
+}

changedInput schema / properties / timespan / description

Previous value: -"Time window, e.g. \"1m\", \"6m\". TV data spans 2009–October 2024."New value: +"Time window, e.g. \"1m\", \"6m\". Ignored when startDatetime/endDatetime are set. TV data spans 2009–October 2024."

Changed2 schema fields changedJun 4, 2026

changedOutput schema / properties / totalCount / description

Previous value: -"Number of matching clips from which co-occurrences were computed."New value: +"Number of clips from which co-occurrences were computed. Absent when the upstream API does not return a clip count."

changedOutput schema / required

Previous value: -[
-  "words",
-  "effectiveQuery",
-  "totalCount"
-]New value: +[
+  "words",
+  "effectiveQuery"
+]

Changed5 schema fields changedMay 30, 2026

removedOutput schema / properties / clipsAnalyzed

Removed value: -{
-  "description": "Number of matching clips from which co-occurrences were computed.",
-  "type": "number"
-}

addedOutput schema / properties / effectiveQuery

Added value: +{
+  "description": "Echoed query string for use in follow-up calls.",
+  "type": "string"
+}

removedOutput schema / properties / query

Removed value: -{
-  "description": "Echoed query string.",
-  "type": "string"
-}

addedOutput schema / properties / totalCount

Added value: +{
+  "description": "Number of matching clips from which co-occurrences were computed.",
+  "type": "number"
+}

changedOutput schema / required

Previous value: -[
-  "query",
-  "words",
-  "clipsAnalyzed"
-]New value: +[
+  "words",
+  "effectiveQuery",
+  "totalCount"
+]

First observedMay 29, 2026

TDQS

A4.1/5.0

Behavior4/5

Does the description disclose side effects, auth requirements, rate limits, or destructive behavior?

With readOnlyHint/openWorldHint already declaring the safety profile, the description still adds material context: results derive from GDELT's relevance-ranked sample documented as only the 200 most relevant clips, not all matching coverage, and scores are on a 0–100 relative scale. The sampling limitation is exactly the kind of trait an agent could otherwise misread, though return-shape details are left to the output schema.

Agents need to know what a tool does to the world before calling it. Descriptions should go beyond structured annotations to explain consequences.

Conciseness4/5

Is the description appropriately sized, front-loaded, and free of redundancy?

Front-loaded with the core action, then supporting caveats. It is dense and mostly earns its sentences, but the 2009–October 2024 data span is stated in the description and repeated in three parameter descriptions, a minor redundancy.

Shorter descriptions cost fewer tokens and are easier for agents to parse. Every sentence should earn its place.

Completeness4/5

Given the tool's complexity, does the description cover enough for an agent to succeed on first attempt?

An output schema exists, so return values need not be documented, yet the description still conveys the scoring semantics and the sampling caveat. Combined with the exhaustive station/timespan notes in the schema, an agent has what it needs to call this correctly; only explicit sibling routing is absent.

Complex tools with many parameters or behaviors need more documentation. Simple tools need less. This dimension scales expectations accordingly.

Parameters3/5

Does the description clarify parameter syntax, constraints, interactions, or defaults beyond what the schema provides?

Schema description coverage is 100% and the parameter docs are rich (station requirement, 14-digit datetime format, timespan precedence), so the schema carries the load. The description adds no parameter syntax of its own, making the baseline 3 appropriate.

Input schemas describe structure but not intent. Descriptions should explain non-obvious parameter relationships and valid value ranges.

Purpose5/5

Does the description clearly state what the tool does and how it differs from similar tools?

States a specific verb and resource — return top co-occurring words/phrases from TV clips matching a query — and characterizes the output as 'the vocabulary framing a topic on television.' This cleanly separates it from clip-returning siblings like gdelt_search_tv or gdelt_get_tv_clips without the agent needing to open any schema.

Agents choose between tools based on descriptions. A clear purpose with a specific verb and resource helps agents select the right tool.

Usage Guidelines4/5

Does the description explain when to use this tool, when not to, or what alternatives exist?

Gives explicit use cases ('understand narrative framing, identify related concepts, or generate follow-up search terms') and warns against the wrong usage pattern ('compare windows or stations with a separate, narrower call for each'). It stops short of naming the specific sibling alternative, but the context is clear enough to route correctly.

Agents often have multiple tools that could apply. Explicit usage guidance like "use X instead of Y when Z" prevents misuse.

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Get GDELT TV Context

Input Schema

Output Schema

Schema Changelog

TDQS

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