Search and analyze global news coverage and US TV transcripts via the GDELT Project APIs.
Search and analyze global news coverage and US TV transcripts via the GDELT Project APIs. That is what the gdelt mcp server brings to an AI assistant: the same capability, reachable through the Model Context Protocol rather than a separate app or dashboard.
The server publishes 11 tools. What each one is for:
gdelt_search_articles — Search the last 3 months of global news coverage (65 languages) with full-text and filter operators. Returns up to 250 articles, and hands back thegdelt_get_coverage_timeline — Retrieve a time series of coverage volume or average tone for a query. volume_with_articles mode includes top articles per spike timestep, withgdelt_get_tone_distribution — Get a tone histogram (bins ~−30 to +30) showing whether coverage is uniformly negative, bimodal, or clustered near neutralgdelt_get_coverage_breakdown — Break down coverage volume by source language or source country — a multi-series time series showing geographic propagation. Values are normalizedgdelt_search_tv — Search US television news closed captions (2009–Oct 2024) and return per-station airtime time seriesgdelt_get_tv_clips — Retrieve up to 3,000 matching TV clips with transcript excerpts and Internet Archive viewing links, and the date windows to re-query when thatgdelt_get_tv_context — Get the most frequent co-occurring words and phrases from TV clips matching a querygdelt_get_tv_trending — Retrieve trending topics currently dominating US television news (updated every 15 minutes; no query required)gdelt_list_tv_stations — List all TV stations with market, network, and monitoring date ranges to verify station availability before queryingPrerequisites — The Prerequisites tool exposed by this serverInstallation — The Installation tool exposed by this serverConfiguration is passed through the environment: MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE, MCP_LOG_LEVEL, GDELT_BASE_URL, MCP_HTTP_ENDPOINT_PATH, MCP_PUBLIC_URL. Treat anything key-shaped as a real credential — scope it to the minimum the server needs, and rotate it if it ever lands in a shared config.
Because this one is hosted, setup is mostly authentication — you point your client at the endpoint and approve access. Nothing runs on your machine, so there is no runtime to keep patched.
Among the file and storage access options, the useful question is rarely "what can it do" but "what does it cost you to run" — permissions, credentials, and how much of your context its toolset consumes. Gdelt's toolset — gdelt_search_articles, gdelt_get_coverage_timeline, gdelt_get_tone_distribution and 8 more — is a fair guide to whether it matches your workflow. It is maintained by cyanheads; worth a glance at recent repository activity before you build anything load-bearing on it.
This entry was verified against Gdelt's own documentation before publication; SyncDev keeps the directory reviewed rather than auto-generated.
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| gdelt_search_articles | Search the last 3 months of global news coverage (65 languages) with full-text and filter operators. Returns up to 250 articles, and hands back the date windows to re-query when that ceiling is hit. |
| gdelt_get_coverage_timeline | Retrieve a time series of coverage volume or average tone for a query. volume_with_articles mode includes top articles per spike timestep, with points to render a timestep's full article list. |
| gdelt_get_tone_distribution | Get a tone histogram (bins ~−30 to +30) showing whether coverage is uniformly negative, bimodal, or clustered near neutral. |
| gdelt_get_coverage_breakdown | Break down coverage volume by source language or source country — a multi-series time series showing geographic propagation. Values are normalized shares of media output, not article counts. |
| gdelt_search_tv | Search US television news closed captions (2009–Oct 2024) and return per-station airtime time series. |
| gdelt_get_tv_clips | Retrieve up to 3,000 matching TV clips with transcript excerpts and Internet Archive viewing links, and the date windows to re-query when that ceiling is hit. |
| gdelt_get_tv_context | Get the most frequent co-occurring words and phrases from TV clips matching a query. |
| gdelt_get_tv_trending | Retrieve trending topics currently dominating US television news (updated every 15 minutes; no query required). |
| gdelt_list_tv_stations | List all TV stations with market, network, and monitoring date ranges to verify station availability before querying. |
| Prerequisites | The Prerequisites tool exposed by this server. |
| Installation | The Installation tool exposed by this server. |
{
"mcpServers": {
"gdelt-mcp-server": {
"type": "streamable-http",
"url": "https://gdelt.caseyjhand.com/mcp"
}
}
}Configuration as documented by the project. Restart the client after saving.
| Variable | Description | Required |
|---|---|---|
| MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE | Configuration value read at startup. | Optional |
| MCP_LOG_LEVEL | Configuration value read at startup. | Optional |
| GDELT_BASE_URL | Endpoint or connection string the server talks to. | Yes |
| MCP_HTTP_ENDPOINT_PATH | Filesystem location the server is allowed to use. | Optional |
| MCP_PUBLIC_URL | Endpoint or connection string the server talks to. | Yes |
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