Wayback Machine MCP Server (Python)

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides access to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine: list snapshots and fetch archived pages. Inspired by the TypeScript server described in the LobeHub listing.

• Reference: Wayback MCP (listing) — link

• Reference: Internet Archive APIs — Wayback APIs index

• Reference: MCP server quickstart — Build an MCP Server

Features

• Tools

  • get_snapshots(url, from, to, limit, match_type) via Wayback CDX API

  • get_archived_page(url, timestamp, original) fetches archived content

  • search_items(query, mediatype, collection, fields, sort, rows, page) searches archive.org items

• Resource

  • wayback://{url}/{timestamp} returns the archived page content

Install

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Run (stdio)

python -m wayback_mcp.server

Install as CLI

pip install wayback-mcp
wayback-mcp

Run with uvx (no install)

uvx wayback-mcp

• Pin Python version:

uvx --python 3.12 wayback-mcp

• Pin package version:

uvx --from wayback-mcp==0.1.1 wayback-mcp

Configure in MCP client

Claude Desktop settings (example):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "wayback-machine": {
      "command": "wayback-mcp",
      "args": [],
      "env": {},
      "disabled": false,
      "autoApprove": []
    }
  }
}

Alternatively, using uvx (no install):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "wayback-machine": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["wayback-mcp"],
      "env": {},
      "disabled": false,
      "autoApprove": []
    }
  }
}

Usage examples

• Tool call (snapshots):

get_snapshots(url="example.com", from="20200101", to="20201231", limit=10)

• Tool call (page):

get_archived_page(url="example.com", timestamp="20200101120000", original=true)

• Tool call (items search):

search_items(
  query="title:(Wayback) AND creator:(Internet Archive)",
  mediatype="texts",
  fields=["identifier","title","creator","mediatype","publicdate"],
  sort=["publicdate desc"],
  rows=20,
  page=1
)

• Resource fetch:

wayback://example.com/20200101120000

Notes

• Snapshot data via CDX API: https://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url={url}&output=json

• Page retrieval via Wayback: https://web.archive.org/web/{timestamp}/{url} (or id_ mode for original content)

• Advanced item search endpoint: https://archive.org/advancedsearch.php (JSON output)