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prothomalo-mcp

prothomalo-mcp

by Claudefarid
OverviewSchemaSourceRelated ServersDiscussionsAdmin
Python
Remote

prothomalo-mcp

An MCP server that lets an AI assistant search and read Prothom Alo — Bangladesh's largest Bengali-language newspaper.

Built with FastMCP. Works in Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible client.

Unofficial. This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Prothom Alo or Mediastar Ltd. It is an independent client for endpoints the site already serves publicly.

What it does

Tool

Purpose

search_news(query, limit)

Keyword search across the archive. Works in Bengali and English.

latest_news(section, limit)

Newest articles, optionally filtered to one section.

read_article(url_or_slug)

Full article text for a single story.

list_sections(contains)

Browse the ~356 available section slugs.

Useful for media monitoring, brand and competitor mention tracking, or researching how a topic is being covered in Bangladeshi press.

Related MCP server: News API MCP Server

Install

Requires uv and Python 3.12+.

git clone https://github.com/Claudefarid/prothomalo-mcp.git
cd prothomalo-mcp
uv sync

No API key, login, or paid subscription is needed.

Connect to a client

uv run fastmcp install claude-code server.py:mcp     # Claude Code
uv run fastmcp install claude-desktop server.py:mcp  # Claude Desktop
uv run fastmcp install cursor server.py:mcp          # Cursor

Restart the client afterwards. Then just ask it things like "What has Prothom Alo published about startups this week?"

Verify it works

uv run python test_server.py

How it works

Prothom Alo runs on the Quintype CMS, which exposes a public JSON API under /api/v1/. The site's robots.txt permits these paths — it disallows only /api/auth/, /api/comments/get_comments_json, and /story/*/element/. No HTML scraping is involved.

Endpoints used:

Endpoint

Used for

/api/v1/search?q=

Keyword search

/api/v1/stories?limit=

Latest articles

/api/v1/stories-by-slug?slug=

Full article body

/api/v1/config

Section list

API quirks worth knowing

If you're building against this API yourself, these cost me some time:

  • /api/v1/advanced-search does not respect recency. Querying section-name=bangladesh returns articles from 2014. It's an archive search, not a news feed.

  • section= is silently ignored. The parameter is section-name. Passing section returns unfiltered results rather than an error — easy to miss.

  • /api/v1/stories returns genuinely current articles but has no working section filter. So latest_news() fetches the newest 100 and filters client-side. A quiet section may therefore return fewer items than requested; the tool reports this rather than failing silently.

Please be considerate

Prothom Alo's articles are their copyrighted work. This tool is intended for personal research, monitoring, and summarization — not for republishing their content. Requests identify themselves via User-Agent. Keep your volume reasonable; don't hammer their servers.

License

MIT — see LICENSE. The license covers this code only, not any content retrieved through it.

Available Tools

4 tools
latest_newsLatest NewsA

Get the most recent Prothom Alo articles, newest first.

section is a slug such as 'bangladesh', 'business', 'sports', 'politics'. Call list_sections to see what exists.

Note: the site's API has no server-side section filter that preserves recency, so a section request scans the newest 100 stories and filters locally. A quiet section may therefore return fewer items than requested.

Inputs: limit, section. Returns: object

list_sectionsList SectionsA

List Prothom Alo section slugs, optionally filtered by a substring.

Inputs: contains. Returns: result

read_articleRead ArticleA

Read the full text of one Prothom Alo article.

Accepts a full URL or a bare slug like 'sports/football/cqo9kmtmlf'.

Inputs: url_or_slug (required). Returns: object

search_newsSearch NewsA

Search Prothom Alo articles by keyword. Works in Bengali or English.

Use for tracking a topic, brand, person, or event in Bangladeshi media.

Inputs: query (required), limit. Returns: object

Tool Schema Changelog

Recent tool additions, removals, and schema changes observed during successful MCP inspections.

Loading tool schema changelog…

    Deploy Server
    One endpoint for every MCP toolRayrun runs every MCP server behind one URL and holds the credentials. Each call is decided per client, tool, and argument, then recorded.ray.runAd

    TDQS

    A4.3/5.0

    Scored across 4 tools

    Disambiguation5/5

    Each tool has a clearly distinct purpose: search by keyword, fetch recent articles by section, read full text, and list available sections. There is no meaningful overlap that would cause an agent to pick the wrong tool.

    Naming Consistency4/5

    Three tools follow a verb_noun pattern (search_news, read_article, list_sections), while latest_news uses an adjective_noun pattern. The naming is still readable and consistent in style, with only a minor deviation.

    Tool Count5/5

    Four tools is well-scoped for a news-focused MCP server. Each tool covers a necessary part of the workflow—discovering sections, searching, listing recent articles, and reading full content—without unnecessary duplication.

    Completeness4/5

    The core read-only news workflow is covered: discover sections, search, get latest, and read full articles. There are minor gaps like date-range filtering or section-specific search, but agents can typically work around these with the provided tools.

    Maintenance

    ActivityStale
    ResponsivenessNo recent community issues

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