china-news-feed-mcp

A TypeScript MCP server for China news, platform hot lists, and deletion-watch flags, wrapping the China News Feed Apify actor (CeTIPfpcWcDrEhrPV). Uses Node.js 20 native fetch and MCP over stdio.

Actor usage costs $8 per 1,000 dataset rows, billed to your own Apify account. Supply your API token through APIFY_TOKEN. Each call starts an actor run with emitOnlyNew: false, snapshotCount: 1, and maxItems as the billed-row cap. A default 50-row call costs up to $0.40 at this row price.

Supported platforms: Weibo 微博 (weibo), Baidu 百度 (baidu), Zhihu 知乎 (zhihu), Toutiao 今日头条 (toutiao), Douyin 抖音 (douyin), Bilibili 哔哩哔哩 (bilibili), Kuaishou 快手 (kuaishou).

News sourceTypes accepts the actor's exact values: State media, Party-gov, Commercial platform, Overseas independent, Dissident, Censorship tracker. Omitting sources or source types uses actor defaults; an empty source-type array selects no news types. An empty platform array selects no hot lists.

language controls output projection: en includes headline_en, zh includes headline_original, and both includes both. Missing translations are omitted. The actor has no language or query input. query filters both headlines locally, case-insensitively, after fetching. Deletion filtering also happens locally, so the returned count can be smaller than the fetched/billed row count. No automatic retries are made.

Claude Desktop and Cursor

Install Node.js 20 or newer and obtain a token from your Apify account. For Claude Desktop, add the following to claude_desktop_config.json (open it through Settings → Developer → Edit Config). For Cursor, add it to .cursor/mcp.json in your project or ~/.cursor/mcp.json for global use. Merge it with existing mcpServers entries, then restart the client.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "china-news-feed": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "github:Ownly-Network/china-news-feed-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "APIFY_TOKEN": "<your-apify-token>"
      }
    }
  }
}

GitHub installation builds dist/ using the prepare script. Git must also be available for installation from GitHub. Keep your real token in private client configuration or your process environment; never commit it.

For a local build:

git clone https://github.com/Ownly-Network/china-news-feed-mcp.git
cd china-news-feed-mcp
npm install
npm run build

Use this server entry in either client's mcpServers object, replacing the path with your absolute checkout path:

{
  "china-news-feed": {
    "command": "node",
    "args": ["/absolute/path/china-news-feed-mcp/dist/index.js"],
    "env": { "APIFY_TOKEN": "<your-apify-token>" }
  }
}

For manual startup with APIFY_TOKEN already exported, run npm start. The server reserves stdout for MCP messages. Missing tokens produce a clear tool error; tokens and raw upstream errors are never logged. The fetch timeout is 300 seconds; configure a longer tool timeout in your client if supported. A timed-out request may leave an actor run active in Apify.

Related MCP server: dailyhot

Docker

docker build -t china-news-feed-mcp .
# APIFY_TOKEN must already be exported in your shell.
docker run --rm -i -e APIFY_TOKEN china-news-feed-mcp

To use Docker from Claude Desktop or Cursor, set command to docker, args to ["run", "--rm", "-i", "-e", "APIFY_TOKEN", "china-news-feed-mcp"], and provide APIFY_TOKEN in the server's env. Use -i to keep stdin open for stdio transport.

Smithery

The included smithery.yaml declares a stdio start command and requires the apifyToken configuration value. Smithery maps that value to APIFY_TOKEN and starts node dist/index.js; the included multi-stage Dockerfile supplies the build and runtime. Supply your own token when configuring the server.

The official Apify MCP also works generically with this actor. This wrapper adds dedicated tools, local headline filtering, language projection, and compact output.

Sample output

Shortened from the two fixture rows in sample-rows.json, illustrating a get_deletions response. The tool returns compact JSON text; null and empty fields are dropped. Flags such as likely_censored are actor assessments and retain their status and evidence.

{
  "count": 2,
  "rows": [
    {
      "kind": "hot",
      "source_id": "toutiao",
      "headline_en": "The 20th Asian Games Come to a Close",
      "headline_original": "第20届亚运会闭幕",
      "rank": 1,
      "peak_rank": 1,
      "first_seen": "2026-10-04T18:07:26Z",
      "last_seen": "2026-10-04T23:28:50Z",
      "censorship": { "status": "likely_censored", "label": "Likely censored" }
    },
    {
      "kind": "hot",
      "source_id": "weibo",
      "headline_original": "蔡康永",
      "rank": 14,
      "peak_rank": 11,
      "censorship": { "status": "likely_censored", "label": "Likely censored" }
    }
  ],
  "note": "billed rows: 2 at $8/1000"
}

Pay-per-call HTTP API (x402)

• API base URL: https://ownly-cmf-x402.joyd-ai-2026.workers.dev

• Payee (payTo): 0x7BB40af451f7e6fcB7C844a0Ac9e709B92854F5F

• Price: $0.01 per call, paid in USDC on Base

• Buyer guide: docs/x402-buyer-guide.md

Development

npm install
npm run build
npm test

Tests use mocked fetch responses and the provided fixtures, with no paid actor runs. Input reference: actor-input-schema.json. Licensed under MIT, copyright 2026 Ownly.

Related links

• Free sample rows on GitHub: https://github.com/Ownly-Network/china-news-feed-samples

• Hugging Face dataset: https://huggingface.co/datasets/freedom-press/china-news-feed-sample

• Apify actor: https://apify.com/china.unofficial/china-news-feed