What can you do with Fetch MCP?
- Fetch web content as HTML, JSON, plain text, or Markdown
- Extract article content with Mozilla Readability (strips ads, nav, boilerplate)
- Extract YouTube video transcripts (via
yt-dlpor direct extraction) - Proxy support for requests behind firewalls
- Pagination with
max_lengthandstart_index - Custom request headers
- SSRF protection (blocks private/localhost addresses and DNS rebinding)
- Response size limits to prevent memory exhaustion
Install
The installation steps are in the documentation below. Documentation
Documentation
From the project's README on GitHub, refreshed weekly. Links open on GitHub.
Fetch MCP Server
An MCP server for fetching web content in multiple formats — HTML, JSON, plain text, Markdown, readable article content, and YouTube transcripts.
Tools
All tools accept the following common parameters:
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
url | string | Yes | URL to fetch |
headers | object | No | Custom headers to include in the request |
max_length | number | No | Maximum characters to return (default: 5000) |
start_index | number | No | Start from this character index (default: 0) |
proxy | string | No | Proxy URL (e.g. http://proxy:8080) |
- fetch_html — Fetch a website and return its raw HTML content.
- fetch_markdown — Fetch a website and return its content converted to Markdown.
- fetch_txt — Fetch a website and return plain text with HTML tags, scripts, and styles removed.
- fetch_json — Fetch a URL and return the JSON response.
- fetch_readable — Fetch a website and extract the main article content using Mozilla Readability, returned as Markdown. Strips navigation, ads, and boilerplate. Ideal for articles and blog posts.
- fetch_youtube_transcript — Fetch a YouTube video's captions/transcript. Uses
yt-dlpif available, otherwise extracts directly from the page. Accepts an additionallangparameter (default:"en") to select the caption language.
Installation
As an MCP server
Add to your MCP client configuration:
{
"mcpServers": {
"fetch": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["mcp-fetch-server"]
}
}
}
As a CLI
npx mcp-fetch <command> <url> [flags]
Or install globally:
npm install -g mcp-fetch-server
mcp-fetch <command> <url> [flags]
CLI Usage
mcp-fetch <command> <url> [flags]
Commands
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
html | Fetch a URL and return raw HTML |
markdown | Fetch a URL and return Markdown |
readable | Fetch a URL and return article content as Markdown (via Readability) |
txt | Fetch a URL and return plain text |
json | Fetch a URL and return JSON |
youtube | Fetch a YouTube video transcript |
Flags
| Flag | Description |
|---|---|
--max-length <N> | Maximum characters to return |
--start-index <N> | Start from this character index |
--proxy <URL> | Proxy URL |
--lang <code> | Language code for YouTube transcripts (default: en) |
--help | Show help message |
--version | Show version |
Examples
# Fetch a page as markdown
mcp-fetch markdown https://example.com
# Extract article content without boilerplate
mcp-fetch readable https://example.com/blog/post
# Get a YouTube transcript in Spanish
mcp-fetch youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ --lang es
# Fetch with a length limit
mcp-fetch html https://example.com --max-length 10000
# Fetch through a proxy
mcp-fetch json https://api.example.com/data --proxy http://proxy:8080
Environment Variables
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
DEFAULT_LIMIT | Default character limit for responses (default: 5000, set to 0 for no limit) |
MAX_RESPONSE_BYTES | Maximum response body size in bytes (default: 10485760 / 10 MB) |
Example with a custom limit:
{
"mcpServers": {
"fetch": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["mcp-fetch-server"],
"env": {
"DEFAULT_LIMIT": "50000"
}
}
}
}
Features
- Fetch web content as HTML, JSON, plain text, or Markdown
- Extract article content with Mozilla Readability (strips ads, nav, boilerplate)
- Extract YouTube video transcripts (via
yt-dlpor direct extraction) - Proxy support for requests behind firewalls
- Pagination with
max_lengthandstart_index - Custom request headers
- SSRF protection (blocks private/localhost addresses and DNS rebinding)
- Response size limits to prevent memory exhaustion
Development
bun install
bun run dev # start with watch mode
bun test # run tests
bun run build # build for production
License
This project is licensed under the MIT License.
Frequently asked questions
What is Fetch MCP?
Fetch JSON, text and HTML data.
How do I install Fetch MCP?
Follow the installation steps in its documentation, shown on this page and in its repository.
Is Fetch MCP open source?
Yes. Its code is on GitHub under the MIT license.
Who maintains Fetch MCP?
It is published by zcaceres. AI.tn lists it but does not maintain or endorse it.
From the community awesome-mcp-servers lists and the project's GitHub repository. Listing is not an endorsement: review a server's code and permissions before giving it access to your data.