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rayss868

Web-curl MCP Server

by rayss868
README.md
### Google Custom Search API

Google Custom Search API is free with usage limits (e.g., 100 queries per day for free, with additional queries requiring payment). For full details on quotas, pricing, and restrictions, see the [official documentation](https://developers.google.com/custom-search/v1/overview).

# Web-curl

<div align="center">

![Web-curl Logo](image/R-Web-Curl.png)

</div>

**Developed by Rayss**

> ๐Ÿš€ **Open Source Project**  
> ๐Ÿ› ๏ธ Built with Node.js & TypeScript (Node.js v18+ required)

---

<div align="center">

[![Node.js](https://img.shields.io/badge/Node.js-18%2B-brightgreen)](https://nodejs.org/)
[![License](https://img.shields.io/badge/license-MIT-blue.svg)](LICENSE)
![Status](https://img.shields.io/badge/status-active-success)

</div>

---

<div align="center">
  <a href="https://glama.ai/mcp/servers/@rayss868/MCP-Web-Curl">
    <img width="380" height="200" src="https://glama.ai/mcp/servers/@rayss868/MCP-Web-Curl/badge" alt="Web-curl Server MCP server" />
  </a>
</div>

---

## ๐ŸŽฌ Demo Video

[![Watch the demo](https://img.shields.io/badge/Video-Demo-blue?logo=playstation)](demo/demo_1.mp4)

> [Click here to watch the demo video directly in your browser.](demo/demo_1.mp4)

If your platform supports it, you can also [download and play demo/demo_1.mp4](demo/demo_1.mp4) directly.

<div align="center">

<video width="640" height="360" controls autoplay>
  <source src="demo/demo_1.mp4" type="video/mp4">
  Your browser does not support the video tag.
</video>

</div>

---

## ๐Ÿ“š Table of Contents

- [Changelog / Update History](#changelog)
- [Overview](#overview)
- [Features](#features)
- [Architecture](#architecture)
- [Installation](#installation)
- [Usage](#usage)
- [CLI Usage](#cli-usage)
- [MCP Server Usage](#mcp-server-usage)
- [Configuration](#configuration)
- [Examples](#examples)
- [Troubleshooting](#troubleshooting)
- [Tips & Best Practices](#tips--best-practices)
- [Contributing & Issues](#contributing--issues)
- [Academic Publication](#academic-publication)
- [License & Attribution](#license--attribution)

---

<a name="changelog"></a>
## ๐Ÿ“ Changelog / Update History

See [CHANGELOG.md](CHANGELOG.md) for a complete history of updates and new features.

<a name="overview"></a>
## ๐Ÿ“ Overview

**Web-curl** is a powerful tool for fetching and extracting text content from web pages and APIs. Use it as a standalone CLI or as an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server. Web-curl leverages Puppeteer for robust web scraping and supports advanced features such as resource blocking, custom headers, authentication, and Google Custom Search.

---
<a name="features"></a>

## โœจ Features

### ๐Ÿš€ Deep Research & Automation (v1.4.2)

- **Advanced Browser Automation**: Full control over Chromium via Puppeteer (click, type, scroll, hover, key presses).
- **Always-On Session Persistence**: Browser profiles are now always persistent. Login sessions, cookies, and cache are automatically saved in a local `user_data/` directory.
- **Token-Efficient Snapshots**:
    - **Accessibility Tree**: Clean, structured snapshots instead of messy HTML.
    - **HTML Slice Mode**: Raw HTML with `startIndex`/`endIndex` for safe chunking when needed.
    - **Viewport Filtering**: Automatically filters out elements not visible on screen, saving up to 90% of context tokens on long pages.
- **Chrome DevTools Integration (implemented, but hidden from `list_tools`)**:
    - Network Monitoring (`browser_network_requests`)
    - Console Logs (`browser_console_messages`)
- **Parallel Search**:
    - `multi_search`: Run multiple Google searches at once (only exposed search tool).
- **Research Pipeline**:
    - `research`: Decompose a question into sub-queries, run them in parallel, dedupe, and synthesize a markdown report with numbered citations.
    - `agent`: Collect structured data across pages using a field schema (CSS selectors and/or JSON-LD paths).
- **Structured Extraction**:
    - `extract`: CSS-selector fields, tables, meta tags, JSON-LD blocks, Readability main content, and schema-type detection.
    - `crawl`: BFS/DFS traversal, sitemap parsing (incl. index files), or one-page link map, with include/exclude regex, same-domain restriction, and politeness delay.
- **Intelligent Resource Management**:
    - **Idle Auto-Close**: Browser automatically shuts down after 15 minutes of inactivity to save RAM/CPU.
    - **Tab Rotation**: Automatically replaces the oldest tab when the 10-tab limit is reached.
- **Media & Documents**:
    - **Full-Page Screenshots**: Capture high-quality screenshots with a 5-day auto-cleanup lifecycle and custom destination support.
    - **Document Parsing**: Extract text from PDF and DOCX files directly from URLs.

### Storage & Download Details

- ๐Ÿ—‚๏ธ Error log rotation: `logs/error-log.txt` is rotated when it exceeds ~1MB (renamed to `error-log.txt.bak`) to prevent unbounded growth.
- ๐Ÿงน Logs & temp cleanup: old temporary files in the `logs/` directory are cleaned up at startup.
- ๐Ÿ›‘ Browser lifecycle: Puppeteer browser instances are closed in finally blocks to avoid Chromium temp file leaks.
- ๐Ÿ”Ž Content extraction:
  - Returns raw text, HTML, and Readability "main article" when available. Readability attempts to extract the primary content of a webpage, removing headers, footers, sidebars, and other non-essential elements, providing a cleaner, more focused text.
  - Readability output is subject to `startIndex`/`maxLength`/`chunkSize` slicing when requested.
- ๐Ÿšซ Resource blocking: `blockResources` is now always forced to `false`, meaning resources are never blocked for faster page loads.
- โฑ๏ธ Timeout control: navigation and API request timeouts are configurable via tool arguments.
- ๐Ÿ’พ Output: results can be printed to stdout or written to a file via CLI options.
- โฌ‡๏ธ Download behavior (`download_file`):
  - `destinationFolder` accepts relative paths (resolved against the project root) or absolute paths.
  - The server creates `destinationFolder` if it does not exist.
  - Downloads are streamed using Node streams + `pipeline` to minimize memory use and ensure robust writes.
  - Filenames are derived from the URL path (e.g., `https://.../path/file.jpg` -> `file.jpg`). If no filename is present, the fallback name is `downloaded_file`.
  - Overwrite semantics: by default the implementation will overwrite an existing file with the same name.
- ๐Ÿ–ฅ๏ธ Usage modes: CLI and MCP server (stdin/stdout transport).
- ๐ŸŒ REST client: `fetch_api` returns JSON/text when appropriate and base64 for binary responses.
- ๐Ÿ” Google Custom Search: requires `APIKEY_GOOGLE_SEARCH` and `CX_GOOGLE_SEARCH`.
- ๐Ÿค– Smart command:
  - Auto language detection (franc-min) and optional translation (dynamic `translate` import).
  - Query enrichment is heuristic-based; results depend on the detected intent.

---

<a name="architecture"></a>
## ๐Ÿ—๏ธ Architecture

This section outlines the high-level architecture of Web-curl.

```mermaid
graph TD
    A[User/MCP Host] --> B(CLI / MCP Server)
    B --> C{Tool Handlers}
    C -- browser_flow --> D["Puppeteer (Web Scraping)"]
    C -- fetch_api --> E["REST Client"]
    C -- multi_search --> F["Google Custom Search API"]
    C -- parse_document --> G["Document Parser (PDF/DOCX)"]
    C -- download_file --> H["File System (Downloads)"]
    C -- research --> F
    C -- agent --> F
    C -- extract --> I["HTML Parser (jsdom + Readability)"]
    C -- crawl --> I
    D --> J["Web Content"]
    E --> K["External APIs"]
    F --> L["Google Search Results"]
    H --> M["Local Storage"]
```
*   **CLI & MCP Server**: [`src/index.ts`](src/index.ts)
    Implements both the CLI entry point and the MCP server.
*   **Web Scraping**: Uses Puppeteer for headless browsing and content extraction.
*   **REST Client**: [`src/rest-client.ts`](src/rest-client.ts)
    Provides a flexible HTTP client for API requests.

---
<a name="installation"></a>

## โš™๏ธ MCP Server Configuration Example

To integrate web-curl as an MCP server, add the following configuration to your `mcp_settings.json`:

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "web-curl": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": [
        "build/index.js"
      ],
      "disabled": false,
      "alwaysAllow": [
        "browser_flow",
        "browser_configure",
        "browser_close",
        "multi_search",
        "fetch_api",
        "download_file",
        "parse_document",
        "research",
        "extract",
        "crawl",
        "agent"
      ],
      "env": {
        "APIKEY_GOOGLE_SEARCH": "YOUR_GOOGLE_API_KEY",
        "CX_GOOGLE_SEARCH": "YOUR_CX_ID"
      }
    }
  }
}
```

---

### ๐Ÿ”‘ How to Obtain Google API Key and CX

1.  **Get a Google API Key:**
    - Go to [Google Cloud Console](https://console.cloud.google.com/).
    - Create/select a project, then go to **APIs & Services > Credentials**.
    - Click **Create Credentials > API key** and copy it.
2.  **Get a Custom Search Engine (CX) ID:**
    - Go to [Google Custom Search Engine](https://cse.google.com/cse/all).
    - Create/select a search engine, then copy the **Search engine ID** (CX).
3.  **Enable Custom Search API:**
    - In Google Cloud Console, go to **APIs & Services > Library**.
    - Search for **Custom Search API** and enable it.

Replace `YOUR_GOOGLE_API_KEY` and `YOUR_CX_ID` in the config above.

---

<a name="installation"></a>
## ๐Ÿ› ๏ธ Installation

```bash
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/rayss868/MCP-Web-Curl
cd web-curl

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build the project
npm run build
```
*   **Prerequisites**: Ensure you have Node.js (v18+) and Git installed on your system.

### Puppeteer installation notes

- **Windows:** Just run `npm install`.
- **Linux / Ubuntu Server:** You must install extra dependencies for Chromium to handle rendering and screenshots in a headless environment. Run:

  ```bash
  sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y \
    fonts-liberation \
    libasound2 \
    libatk-bridge2.0-0 \
    libatk1.0-0 \
    libc6 \
    libcairo2 \
    libcups2 \
    libdbus-1-3 \
    libexpat1 \
    libfontconfig1 \
    libgbm1 \
    libgcc1 \
    libglib2.0-0 \
    libgtk-3-0 \
    libnspr4 \
    libnss3 \
    libpango-1-0-0 \
    libpangocairo-1.0-0 \
    libstdc++6 \
    libx11-6 \
    libx11-xcb1 \
    libxcb1 \
    libxcomposite1 \
    libxcursor1 \
    libxdamage1 \
    libxext6 \
    libxfixes3 \
    libxi6 \
    libxrandr2 \
    libxrender1 \
    libxss1 \
    libxtst6 \
    lsb-release \
    wget \
    xdg-utils
  ```

For more details, see the [Puppeteer troubleshooting guide](https://pptr.dev/troubleshooting).

---

<a name="usage"></a>
## ๐Ÿš€ Usage

### CLI Usage

The CLI supports fetching and extracting text content from web pages.

```bash
# Basic usage
node build/index.js https://example.com

# With options
node build/index.js --timeout 30000 https://example.com

# Save output to a file
node build/index.js -o result.json https://example.com
```

#### Command Line Options

- `--timeout <ms>`: Set navigation timeout (default: 60000)
- `-o <file>`: Output result to specified file

### MCP Server Usage

Web-curl can be run as an MCP server for integration with Roo Context or other MCP-compatible environments.

#### Exposed Tools (v1.4.2)

Only the tools below are exposed via `list_tools` to reduce tool-chaining in agent clients.

- **browser_flow**: One-call browser workflow (optional navigate โ†’ optional actions โ†’ return ONE result).
- **browser_configure**: Set proxy/user-agent/viewport (session persistence is always on via `user_data/`).
- **browser_close**: Close browser and tabs (also auto-closes after 15 minutes of inactivity).

- **multi_search**: Run multiple Google searches in parallel (the only exposed search entrypoint).
- **fetch_api**: REST API request with response truncation (`limit`).
- **download_file**: Download a file from a URL.
- **parse_document**: Extract text from PDF/DOCX URLs.
- **research**: Research pipeline โ€” question decomposition โ†’ parallel sub-search โ†’ dedup โ†’ synthesized markdown report with numbered citations.
- **extract**: Structured page extraction โ€” CSS selectors, tables, meta tags, JSON-LD, Readability main content, schema-type detection.
- **crawl**: Site traversal โ€” BFS/DFS, sitemap (incl. index files), or one-page map, with include/exclude regex and politeness delay.
- **agent**: Structured data collection across pages โ€” field schema with CSS selectors and/or JSON-LD paths, type coercion, required-field validation.

#### Running as MCP Server

```bash
npm run start
```

The server will communicate via stdin/stdout and expose the tools as defined in [`src/index.ts`](src/index.ts).

---

### ๐Ÿšฆ HTML Slicing Example (Recommended for Large Pages)

Use [`browser_flow`](src/index.ts:395) with `result: { type: "snapshot", mode: "html" }` when you need raw HTML but want to keep the response small.

Client request for first slice:
```json
{
  "name": "browser_flow",
  "arguments": {
    "result": {
      "type": "snapshot",
      "mode": "html",
      "startIndex": 0,
      "endIndex": 20000
    }
  }
}
```

Response (example):
```json
{
  "mode": "html",
  "totalLength": 123456,
  "startIndex": 0,
  "endIndex": 20000,
  "remainingCharacters": 103456,
  "content": "<html>...first slice...</html>"
}
```

---

<a name="configuration"></a>
## ๐Ÿงฉ Configuration

- **Session Persistence**: Always enabled. Logins and cookies are automatically reused across restarts.
- **Timeout**: Set navigation and API request timeouts.
- **Environment Variables**: Used for Google Search API integration (used by `multi_search`).

---

## ๐Ÿ’ก Examples {#examples}

<details>
<summary>Make a REST API Request</summary>

```json
{
  "name": "fetch_api",
  "arguments": {
    "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/nodejs/node",
    "method": "GET",
    "headers": {
      "Accept": "application/vnd.github.v3+json"
    },
    "limit": 10000
  }
}
```
</details>

<details>
<summary>Download File</summary>

```json
{
  "name": "download_file",
  "arguments": {
    "url": "https://example.com/image.jpg",
    "destinationFolder": "downloads"
  }
}
```

Note: `destinationFolder` can be either a relative path (resolved against the project root) or an absolute path. The server will create the destination folder if it does not exist.
</details>

<details>
<summary>Configure Browser</summary>

```json
{
  "name": "browser_configure",
  "arguments": {
    "proxy": "http://proxy.example.com:8080",
    "viewport": { "width": 1920, "height": 1080 }
  }
}
```

Note: Session persistence is always enabled. Cookies and login sessions are automatically stored in the `user_data/` directory.
</details>

---
## ๐Ÿ› ๏ธ Troubleshooting {#troubleshooting}

- **Timeout Errors**: Increase the `timeout` parameter if requests are timing out.
- **Google Search Fails**: Ensure `APIKEY_GOOGLE_SEARCH` and `CX_GOOGLE_SEARCH` are set in your environment.
- **Error Logs**: Check the `logs/error-log.txt` file for detailed error messages.

---

## ๐Ÿง  Tips & Best Practices {#tips--best-practices}

<details>
<summary>Click for advanced tips</summary>

- For large pages, use `maxLength` and `startIndex` to fetch content in slices.
- Always validate your tool arguments to avoid errors.
- Secure your API keys and sensitive data using environment variables.
- Review the MCP tool schemas in [`src/index.ts`](src/index.ts) for all available options.

</details>

---

## ๐Ÿค Contributing & Issues {#contributing--issues}

Contributions are welcome! If you want to contribute, fork this repository and submit a pull request.  
If you find any issues or have suggestions, please open an issue on the repository page.

---

<a name="academic-publication"></a>
## ๐Ÿ“„ Academic Publication

This project is the subject of a peer-reviewed journal article:

> Saleh, R. Z., & Lubis, M. (2026). *Design and Implementation of MCP-Web-Curl: A Model Context Protocol Server for Web and API Access in Agentic Coding Assistants.* JURNAL TEKNIK INFORMATIKA, 19(1), 122โ€“134.

- **DOI**: [10.15408/jti.v19i1.49625](https://doi.org/10.15408/jti.v19i1.49625)
- **Article**: [journal.uinjkt.ac.id/index.php/ti/article/view/49625](https://journal.uinjkt.ac.id/index.php/ti/article/view/49625)
- **PDF**: [Download](https://journal.uinjkt.ac.id/index.php/ti/article/download/49625/19031)
- **License**: [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

---

## ๐Ÿ“„ License & Attribution {#license--attribution}

This project was developed by **Rayss**.  
For questions, improvements, or contributions, please contact the author or open an issue in the repository.

---
> **Note:** Google Search API is free with usage limits. For details, see: [Google Custom Search API Overview](https://developers.google.com/custom-search/v1/overview)

TDQS

C2.9/5.0

Scored across 5 tools

Disambiguation3/5

There is significant overlap between fetch_api, fetch_webpage, and download_file, as all three involve retrieving content from URLs, with fetch_api being a general-purpose tool that could subsume the others. Smart_command further blurs boundaries by automatically choosing between fetching and searching, potentially causing confusion about when to use the dedicated tools. However, google_search is clearly distinct for search operations.

Naming Consistency2/5

The naming is inconsistent with mixed conventions: fetch_api and fetch_webpage use a verb_noun pattern, download_file uses verb_noun but with a different verb style, google_search is a compound noun, and smart_command uses an adjective_noun pattern. This lack of a predictable naming scheme makes the tool set harder to navigate and remember.

Tool Count5/5

With 5 tools, the count is well-scoped for a web/curl server, covering key operations like downloading files, making API requests, fetching web content, searching, and a smart utility. Each tool appears to serve a purpose without obvious bloat or thinness, fitting the server's domain appropriately.

Completeness4/5

The tool set covers core web interaction tasks: downloading files, API requests, webpage fetching, and web searching, with smart_command adding flexibility. Minor gaps might include more advanced operations like handling cookies or sessions, but the surface is largely complete for basic web utilities, allowing agents to perform common workflows without major dead ends.

Maintenance

ActivityMaintained
ResponsivenessNo issues