Pelican — OSINT MCP Server

A general-purpose open-source intelligence (OSINT) MCP server for AI agents. Local-first: run it on your own machine, connect any Model Context Protocol client (OpenCode, Hermes, Claude, Cursor, Cline, etc.), and give your agent one tool surface for broad public-data lookups.

🪿 Why "Pelican"?

Pelicans scan the shoreline for fish — symbolising an OSINT server that scans public data sources for intelligence. Short, distinctive, and animal-themed (like many MCP servers in this space).

Related MCP server: wrg-mcp-server

⚡ Quick start

Install

# Using uv (recommended)
uv venv && uv pip install -e ".[dev]"

# Or using pip
pip install pelican[dev]

# Or via uvx (one-shot)
uvx pelican-mcp

Run the MCP server

# stdio (default — local AI agents)
pelican-mcp

# HTTP / streamable-http (remote agents)
pelican-mcp --transport http          # default port 8000
# or with bearer token auth:
OSINT_MCP_AUTH_TOKEN=$(openssl rand -hex 24) pelican-mcp --transport http

Add to your MCP client config

OpenCode (opencode.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pelican": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": ["uv", "run", "pelican-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Code:

claude mcp add pelican -- uv run pelican-mcp

CLI (no MCP client needed)

pelican-mcp-cli whois_domain '{"domain": "example.com"}'
pelican-mcp-cli osint_domain_recon '{"domain": "example.com"}'
pelican-mcp-cli --list-tools

📦 What Pelican does

32 MCP tools across three coverage tiers:

Aggregate tools:

• osint_list_sources — shows all sources and which API keys are configured

• osint_domain_recon — all-in-one free domain recon (DNS + WHOIS + crt.sh + hosts + email security + geoip), correlated

• osint_ip_recon — all-in-one free IP recon (geoip + RDAP + BGP + Shodan InternetDB), correlated

🔑 API keys (all optional)

Most tools work with zero config. Add only the keys for sources you want to unlock:

Copy .env.example to .env and add only the keys you need:

cp .env.example .env
# then edit .env with your keys

Keys are read into SecretStr and never logged.

🛠️ Architecture

pelican/
├── pelican/              pelican package (v2 compatibility shim: pelican -> osint_mcp_server)
│   ├── __init__.py       legacy import shim
│   ├── config.py         env/.env settings, source status
│   ├── net.py            shared async HTTP/DNS helpers, bounded concurrency
│   ├── server.py         FastMCP entry point, tool registration, transports
│   ├── cli.py            direct tool invocation (no MCP client)
│   └── tools/
│       ├── __init__.py
│       ├── domain.py     DNS, RDAP, crt.sh, geoip, BGP, wayback, email security
│       ├── social.py     GitHub, Reddit, Keybase, username, email, gravatar
│       ├── threat.py     HIBP, Ahmia, Shodan InternetDB, CISA KEV, OTX
│       └── suite.py      source listing + aggregate recon tools
└── tests/                unit tests (5 passing)

Every source is an independent module and every tool is read-only — nothing here writes to any target. Tools are annotated with FastMCP readOnlyHint / idempotentHint / openWorldHint so capable clients can see at a glance that these are safe, repeatable, read-only operations.

💡 Credits & attribution

This project is a from-scratch Python implementation that borrows ideas, tool-shapes, source-selection, and endpoint patterns from several excellent MIT-licensed projects. Thanks to their authors:

The licensing sections of these works are reproduced in full below.

📄 License

MIT. See LICENSE.

The three MIT license texts from the credited upstream projects are reproduced in this repository under docs/THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md as required by their MIT terms, so attribution survives this derived work's every redistribution.

🛣️ Roadmap (brainstorm separately)

• Shodan / VirusTotal / Hunter source implementations (keys already plumbed)

• Optional CLI-tool wrappers (Sherlock / Maigret / Holehe) when installed

• Local SQLite cache + background poller for threat feeds (like mcp-threatintel)

• Publish to PyPI

Pelican — one interface, many sources. For authorized open-source intelligence research only.