Which integrations are available for this server?

Uses [Algolia](/mcp/servers/integrations/algolia) API to search Hacker News for high-score posts and discussions related to programming topics and solutions Searches [GitHub](/mcp/servers/integrations/github) Issues API to find community solutions and discussions about coding problems, sorted by reactions and engagement Integrates with [Google](/mcp/servers/integrations/google)'s Gemini API for AI-powered synthesis of search results from community sources into actionable solutions Supports [OpenAI](/mcp/servers/integrations/openai)'s GPT models for processing and synthesizing community-sourced programming solutions into structured responses Uses [Perplexity](/mcp/servers/integrations/perplexity) API with built-in web search capabilities to enhance community research with additional context and solutions Searches programming-related sub[reddit](/mcp/servers/integrations/reddit)s using Reddit's JSON API to find community discussions and solutions to development problems Searches [Stack Overflow](/mcp/servers/integrations/stackoverflow) discussions and solutions using the Stack Exchange API to find real-world fixes and workarounds from the developer community

Community Research MCP

Street-smart tips, hacks, and workarounds from devs who've been there.

An MCP server that digs through Stack Overflow, GitHub Issues, Hacker News, and other developer watering holes to find battle-tested solutions, clever workarounds, and real-world patterns that actually work.

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ "How do I handle FastAPI background tasks with Redis?" │ │ │ │ ┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ ┌────────────┐ │ │ │ Stack │ │ GitHub │ │ Hacker │ │ Discourse │ │ │ │ Overflow │ │ Issues │ │ News │ │ Forums │ │ │ └──────┬───────┘ └──────┬───────┘ └──────┬───────┘ └─────┬──────┘ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └─────────────────┴─────────────────┴────────────────┘ │ │ │ │ │ ┌────────▼────────┐ │ │ │ Deduplicate │ │ │ │ & Score │ │ │ └────────┬────────┘ │ │ │ │ │ ┌────────▼────────┐ │ │ │ Ranked Results │ │ │ │ with Quality │ │ │ │ Scores 0-100 │ │ │ └─────────────────┘ │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Quick Start • Features • Configuration • Tools • Troubleshooting

Quick Start

1. Install

git clone https://github.com/your-repo/community-research-mcp.git cd community-research-mcp pip install -e .

2. Configure Claude Desktop

Drop this into your claude_desktop_config.json:

{ "mcpServers": { "community-research": { "command": "python", "args": ["-m", "community_research_mcp"], "cwd": "/path/to/community-research-mcp" } } }

3. Use It

Just ask Claude:

"Search for Python async database connection pooling patterns"

The MCP taps into developer communities and surfaces ranked solutions with quality scores.

Recommended Model

Use Claude Haiku 3.5, NOT Opus 4.5
Opus 4.5 tends to ignore MCP instructions, rephrase your queries into something you didn't ask, and search for tangential topics instead of using the results it got. Haiku 3.5 follows the MCP's guidance much more reliably.

What It Does

Multi-Source Search

Hits 9 developer communities at once:

Source	What You Get	API Key?
Stack Overflow	Q&A gold	No
GitHub Issues	Bug reports, workarounds	Optional
Hacker News	Tech war stories	No
Lobsters	Deep technical dives	No
Discourse	Language-specific forums	No
Serper	Google Search results	Yes
Tavily	AI-optimized search	Yes
Brave	Privacy-focused search	Yes
Firecrawl	Web scraping	Yes

Quality Scoring

Every result gets a street-cred score (0-100) based on:

Signal	What It Means
Source Authority	Stack Overflow accepted answers beat random blog posts
Community Validation	Upvotes, reactions — the crowd has spoken
Recency	Fresh fixes for fast-moving tech
Specificity	Actual code, not hand-wavy explanations
Evidence	Benchmarks, repro steps, real numbers

Built-In Reliability

Feature	Why It Matters
Circuit Breaker	Stops hammering dead APIs
Auto-Retry	Exponential backoff for flaky connections
Deduplication	Kills duplicate results (~20% noise reduction)
Caching	1-hour TTL so you don't burn through rate limits

Configuration

Environment Variables

Create a .env file:

# Web Search APIs (unlock more sources) SERPER_API_KEY=your_key # https://serper.dev TAVILY_API_KEY=your_key # https://tavily.com BRAVE_SEARCH_API_KEY=your_key # https://brave.com/search/api FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=your_key # https://firecrawl.dev # Higher rate limits GITHUB_TOKEN=your_token # https://github.com/settings/tokens STACKEXCHANGE_API_KEY=your_key # https://stackapps.com # Reddit (requires app registration) REDDIT_CLIENT_ID=your_id REDDIT_CLIENT_SECRET=your_secret REDDIT_REFRESH_TOKEN=your_token

Source Weights

Tweak priorities in config.json:

{ "sources": { "stackoverflow": {"enabled": true, "weight": 10}, "github": {"enabled": true, "weight": 9}, "hackernews": {"enabled": true, "weight": 6}, "serper": {"enabled": true, "weight": 4} } }

Higher weight = more trusted for street-smart solutions.

MCP Tools

`community_search`

The main workhorse. Searches all enabled sources and returns ranked results.

language: "Python" topic: "async SQLAlchemy connection pooling with FastAPI" goal: "Handle 1000 concurrent database connections" current_setup: "FastAPI + PostgreSQL + SQLAlchemy 2.0"

`get_source_status`

Check what's up with all sources — enabled, has API keys, circuit breaker tripped, etc.

`get_rate_limit_status`

See how much quota you've burned through across all APIs.

`clear_cache`

Nuke the search cache when you need fresh results.

Rate Limits

Source	Free Tier	With API Key
Stack Exchange	300/day	10,000/day
GitHub	10/min	30/min
Hacker News	1000/hour	—
Serper	—	2,500/month
Tavily	—	1,000/month
Brave	—	2,000/month

Project Structure

community-research-mcp/ ├── community_research_mcp.py # Main MCP server & tools ├── api/ # Source integrations │ ├── stackexchange.py # Stack Overflow + 19 SE sites │ ├── github.py # GitHub Issues │ ├── hackernews.py # HN via Algolia │ ├── lobsters.py # Lobsters.rs │ ├── discourse.py # Discourse forums │ ├── serper.py # Google Search │ ├── tavily.py # Tavily API │ ├── brave.py # Brave Search │ └── firecrawl.py # Web scraping ├── core/ # Reliability & quality │ ├── reliability.py # Circuit breaker, retry logic │ ├── quality.py # Quality scoring │ ├── dedup.py # Deduplication │ └── metrics.py # Performance monitoring ├── models/ # Pydantic models ├── utils/ # Cache, rate limiting └── tests/ # Test cases

Development

Running Tests

pytest tests/

Code Style

black . && isort . # Format flake8 && mypy . # Lint

Adding a New Source

Create api/yoursource.py with an async search() function
Export from api/__init__.py
Add to source config in community_research_mcp.py
Add rate limit info

Troubleshooting

Make your query more specific (not just "performance" or "settings")
Check that API keys are set for web search sources
Run get_source_status to see if circuit breakers tripped

Chill and wait for the window to reset
Add API keys for higher limits
Rely on caching to avoid repeat searches

Check get_source_status for circuit breaker state
Breaker trips after 5 failures, resets after 5 minutes
Sometimes sources just go down — it happens

Contributing

Fork the repo
Create a feature branch
Make your changes
Run tests and linting
Submit a PR

MIT License — see LICENSE for details.

Built for devs who want real solutions, not documentation fluff.

Community Research MCP

Community Research MCP

Street-smart tips, hacks, and workarounds from devs who've been there.

Quick Start

1. Install

2. Configure Claude Desktop

3. Use It

Recommended Model

What It Does

Multi-Source Search

Quality Scoring

Built-In Reliability

Configuration

Environment Variables

Source Weights

MCP Tools

`community_search`

`get_source_status`

`get_rate_limit_status`

`clear_cache`

Rate Limits

Project Structure

Development

Running Tests

Code Style

Adding a New Source

Troubleshooting

Contributing

Resources

Appeared in Searches

New MCP Servers

Latest Blog Posts

MCP directory API