MCP Server Readability Parser (Python / FastMCP)

Credits/Reference

This project is based on the original server-moz-readability implementation of emzimmer. (For the original README documentation, please refer to the original README.md.)

This Python implementation adapts the original concept to run as python based MCP using FastMCP

Mozilla Readability Parser MCP Server

A Python implementation of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that extracts and transforms webpage content into clean, LLM-optimized Markdown.

Features
Why Not Just Fetch?
Installation
Quick Start
Tool Reference
Dependencies
License

Features

Removes ads, navigation, footers and other non-essential content
Converts clean HTML into well-formatted Markdown
Handles errors gracefully
Optimized for LLM processing
Lightweight and fast

Why Not Just Fetch?

Unlike simple fetch requests, this server:

Extracts only relevant content using Readability algorithm
Eliminates noise like ads, popups, and navigation menus
Reduces token usage by removing unnecessary HTML/CSS
Provides consistent Markdown formatting for better LLM processing
Handles complex web pages with dynamic content

Installation

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/jmh108/MCP-server-readability-python.git
cd MCP-server-readability-python

Create and activate a virtual environment:

python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # On Windows use: venv\Scripts\activate

Install dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Quick Start

Start the server:

fastmcp run server.py

Example request:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/tools/extract_content \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url": "https://example.com/article"}'

Tool Reference

`extract_content`

Fetches and transforms webpage content into clean Markdown.

Arguments:

{
  "url": {
    "type": "string",
    "description": "The website URL to parse",
    "required": true
  }
}

Returns:

{
  "content": "Markdown content..."
}

MCP Server Configuration

To configure the MCP server, add the following to your MCP settings file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "readability": {
      "command": "fastmcp",
      "args": ["run", "server.py"],
      "env": {}
    }
  }
}

The server can then be started using the MCP protocol and accessed via the parse tool.

Dependencies

readability-lxml - Content extraction
html2text - HTML to Markdown conversion
beautifulsoup4 - DOM parsing
requests - HTTP requests

License

MIT License - See LICENSE for details.

MCP Server Readability Parser (Python / FastMCP)