HKEX News Database

This project downloads HKEX Title Search records into a local SQLite database and exposes a read-only MCP server for AI assistants.

Setup and first download

python3 -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/python -m pip install -r requirements.txt
.venv/bin/python hkex_store.py sync --from 2026-08-01

The initial date determines how much historical data is downloaded. The default sync includes both current and delisted securities. Later runs require no dates and re-download the previous sync date to capture late postings safely:

.venv/bin/python hkex_store.py sync

Use --security-status current or --security-status delisted to synchronize only one list. The database is stored at data/hkex_news.db. Sync progress is printed to the terminal and logged to data/hkex_news.log; use --log-file PATH to select a different log file.

Related MCP server: DataBook

MCP server

.mcp.json configures the local stdio server for GitHub Copilot-compatible clients that support workspace MCP configuration. After the virtual environment and first sync exist, trust and start hkex-news in the client's MCP server manager.

For another local MCP client, add the equivalent server configuration:

{
  "command": "/absolute/path/to/financestreet/.venv/bin/python",
  "args": [
    "/absolute/path/to/financestreet/hkex_mcp.py",
    "--database",
    "/absolute/path/to/financestreet/data/hkex_news.db"
  ]
}

During sync, each linked PDF is downloaded and its extracted text is stored in the news.document_text column. HKEX's file_type field identifies most PDFs; the stored document_url also normally ends in .pdf and is used as a fallback when that field is absent. Failed downloads retain an error in news.document_error and are retried on the next overlapping sync. The server provides database_status, search_news, get_news, and list_categories; search_news searches document text and get_news returns it. It only opens the SQLite database in read-only mode. PDF downloads are spaced by a random 1–300 second delay, and sync reports whether each PDF was skipped, downloaded, stored, or failed. To process every stored PDF from every date without making a new HKEX search, run backfill-pdfs:

.venv/bin/python hkex_store.py backfill-pdfs