@pipeworx/hackertarget

HackerTarget MCP — DNS and network-recon utilities. Eleven of the fourteen tools need no credential; three (whois, mtr, traceroute) require the caller's own HackerTarget key.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1683+ live data sources.

Responses are line-oriented plain text from upstream; this pack parses them into structured JSON when reasonable (lines[] plus the verbatim raw).

Tools

Keyless — call with just target:

• dns_lookup(target) — A/AAAA/MX/NS/SOA records for a hostname

• reverse_dns(target) — reverse DNS (PTR) for an IP

• nping(target) — ICMP ping from HackerTarget's probe host

• dns_host_search(target) — passive DNS subdomain search

• find_shared_dns(target) — domains sharing the same nameserver

• geoip(target) — IP geolocation (country / region / city / coords)

• reverse_ip(target) — hostnames resolving to the same IP

• as_lookup(target) — ASN, announced prefix and network name

• http_headers(target) — HTTP response headers for a host or URL

• subnet_lookup(target) — subnet arithmetic for a CIDR block

• page_links(target) — links extracted from one page (full URL)

Require a caller-supplied key — call with target and _apiKey:

• whois(target, _apiKey) — WHOIS record for a domain or IP

• mtr(target, _apiKey) — per-hop loss/latency report

• traceroute(target, _apiKey) — routers between HackerTarget and the target

Related MCP server: mcp-recon

Auth

Pipeworx fronts no platform key for HackerTarget. The eleven keyless tools work with no credential at all; whois, mtr and traceroute are gated behind a HackerTarget membership and are bring-your-own-key (Bruce's ruling, fleet #2132, 2026-09-16).

Get a key from the HackerTarget member dashboard (https://hackertarget.com/ip-tools/) and pass it as _apiKey. It is forwarded as the apikey= query parameter HackerTarget documents.

A keyless call to one of the three gated tools is refused before any request leaves the gateway, with error: auth_required and a message saying the tool requires an API key and where to get one. It is not an outage and does not count as a tool failure. A key that is supplied and then rejected by HackerTarget gets a different auth_required message — "the key you supplied was refused" — so a caller who already holds a key is not sent to fetch it again.

Passing _apiKey to the eleven keyless tools is allowed and useful: it bills the call against the caller's own member quota instead of the shared free tier.

Rate limits

HackerTarget's free tier is 50 calls/day per source IP at up to 2 requests/s (their FAQ, re-read 2026-09-16 — older copies of this file said 100). That source IP is the gateway's shared egress, so an exhausted quota surfaces as an API count exceeded body rather than an HTTP 429. Pipeworx's own rate limit is the outer envelope. Callers who bring _apiKey draw on their own quota.

Data sources

• https://api.hackertarget.com — every tool in this pack

• https://hackertarget.com/ip-tools/ — endpoint, auth and quota documentation

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hackertarget": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/hackertarget/mcp"
    }
  }
}

What this endpoint actually serves

tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/hackertarget/mcp returns the tools in the table above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx, discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and is the authoritative answer for a given day.

This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth, connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.

Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipeworx": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1683+ data sources. The only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx reaches all of them from either one.

No MCP client? Call it over HTTP

curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/hackertarget_dns_lookup \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"target":"pipeworx.io"}'

No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/hackertarget_dns_lookup. Find one: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs with {"query":"..."}.

Standalone (no gateway account)

This package also runs as a local stdio MCP server — no Pipeworx account, no gateway round-trip:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hackertarget": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-hackertarget"]
    }
  }
}

Or run it directly to confirm it starts:

npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-hackertarget

It speaks MCP over stdin/stdout and answers initialize/tools/list/tools/call for only this pack's tools — none of the shared meta-tools the gateway connection above adds. Same source, same tools, no ask_pipeworx routing.

Using with ask_pipeworx

Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:

ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about Hackertarget data" })

The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.

More

• Docs and guides

• pipeworx.io

License

MIT