# defuddle-fetch-mcp-server

A Model Context Protocol server that provides web content fetching capabilities using the [Defuddle](https://github.com/kepano/defuddle) library. This server enables LLMs to retrieve and process content from web pages, automatically cleaning up the HTML and converting it to clean, readable markdown.

This is a drop-in replacement for the [default fetch MCP server](https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers/tree/main/src/fetch) that uses [Readability](https://github.com/mozilla/readability). This generally provides better results for most modern webpages.

## Comparison

(using [this issue](https://github.com/kepano/defuddle/issues/61))

| Default Fetch MCP | Defuddle Fetch MCP |
| --- | --- |
| Contents of https://github.com/kepano/defuddle/issues/61:<br><br>The [MCP protocol](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/introduction) is a standard for giving AI models access to tools.<br><br>There's [a default fetch MCP server](https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers/tree/main/src/fetch), which enables AI models to fetch content from websites. This uses Readability.js which is a bit meh, particularly at navigating GitHub (which I try to use it for a lot). I appreciate there is the GitHub MCP, but a more general web browsing solution seems particularly nice here.<br><br>Defuddle seems significantly better than Readability.js at processing pages nicely, and the model of having custom extractors to make particular sites work well seems great.<br><br>It'd be neat if someone built a defuddle-based fetch MCP server. I might get round to this later if I get frustrated enough with the default fetch MCP 😄 | # idea: defuddle-based fetch MCP server · Issue #61 · kepano/defuddle<br><br>**URL**: https://github.com/kepano/defuddle/issues/61<br><br>Open<br><br>#61<br><br>`[![@domdomegg](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/4953590?u=c9e631d8135b93c7631d88f2e4bcb6b95e000264&v=4&size=80)](https://github.com/domdomegg)`<br><br>## Description<br><br>The [MCP protocol](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/introduction) is a standard for giving AI models access to tools.<br><br>There's [a default fetch MCP server](https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers/tree/main/src/fetch), which enables AI models to fetch content from websites. This uses Readability.js which is a bit meh, particularly at navigating GitHub (which I try to use it for a lot). I appreciate there is the GitHub MCP, but a more general web browsing solution seems particularly nice here.<br><br>Defuddle seems significantly better than Readability.js at processing pages nicely, and the model of having custom extractors to make particular sites work well seems great.<br><br>It'd be neat if someone built a defuddle-based fetch MCP server. I might get round to this later if I get frustrated enough with the default fetch MCP 😄 |

## Features

- **Better Content Extraction**: Uses Defuddle to remove webpage clutter and extract main content: while keeping things like the page title and key metadata
- **Flexible Output**: Supports both markdown and raw HTML output
- **Chunked Reading**: Supports pagination with `start_index` and `max_length` parameters
- **Rich Metadata**: Extracts title, author, publication date, word count, and more

## Installation

Follow the instructions on [install-mcp](https://adamjones.me/install-mcp/?config=eyJjb21tYW5kIjoibnB4IiwiYXJncyI6WyIteSIsImRlZnVkZGxlLWZldGNoLW1jcC1zZXJ2ZXIiXSwibmFtZSI6ImRlZnVkZGxlLWZldGNoIn0=), which generates the right config for your MCP client (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Cline, VS Code, and more).

## Components

### Tools

- **fetch**
  - Fetches a URL from the internet and extracts its contents as clean, markdown text using Defuddle
  - Input parameters:
    - `url` (string, required): URL to fetch
    - `max_length` (number, optional): Maximum number of characters to return. Defaults to 5000.
    - `start_index` (number, optional): Start content from this character index. Defaults to 0.
    - `raw` (boolean, optional): Get raw content without markdown conversion. Defaults to false.
  - Returns cleaned content with metadata including title, author, publication date, word count, domain, and processing time

## Contributing

Pull requests are welcomed on GitHub! To get started:

1. Install Git and Node.js
2. Clone the repository
3. Install dependencies with `npm install`
4. Run `npm run test` to run tests
5. Build with `npm run build`

To add it to Claude Desktop, run `npm run build` then add the following configuration to your `claude_desktop_config.json`:

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "defuddle-fetch": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": [
        "/path/to/clone/defuddle-fetch-mcp-server/dist/index.js"
      ]
    }
  }
}
```

## Releases

Versions follow the [semantic versioning spec](https://semver.org/).

To release:

1. Use `npm version <major | minor | patch>` to bump the version
2. Run `git push --follow-tags` to push with tags
3. Wait for GitHub Actions to publish to the NPM registry.