Guardian Open Platform — search and retrieve full article text from The Guardian archive.
Guardian Open Platform — search and retrieve full article text from The Guardian archive. Exposed over MCP by the guardian mcp server, that capability becomes something an assistant can invoke while it works, not something you go and do afterwards.
Everything the assistant can do here goes through one of these:
guardian_search — Full-text search across The Guardian's archive (1999–present) with optional section, tag, contributor, and date filters. Returns articles with fullguardian_get_article — Fetch a single Guardian article by its ID (path slug) with full body text and all metadata. Use after guardian_search to retrieve the completeguardian_browse — Browse The Guardian's content by section or tag, or discover available sections and tags. Four modes: section_latest, tag_latest, list_sectionsPrerequisites — The Prerequisites tool exposed by this serverInstallation — The Installation tool exposed by this serverYou will need 3 environment variables: MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE, MCP_LOG_LEVEL, GUARDIAN_API_KEY. The server will not start without them, which is usually why the tools fail to appear on a first run. Keep credentials in your client's env block or a secrets manager rather than in a file you might commit.
A free Guardian Open Platform API key is required. Register at https://open-platform.theguardian.com/access — the non-commercial developer tier is free. Set it as
GUARDIAN_API_KEYin your MCP client config or.envfile. The server will not start without it. > > Rate limits (free tier): 5,000 requests/day, 12 calls/second. The server
Setup follows the usual MCP pattern — install or clone the server, register it in your client's configuration file, restart the client. The configuration blocks on this page cover the common clients.
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. Guardian's toolset — guardian_search, guardian_get_article, guardian_browse and 2 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 Guardian's own documentation before publication; SyncDev keeps the directory reviewed rather than auto-generated.
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| guardian_search | Full-text search across The Guardian's archive (1999–present) with optional section, tag, contributor, and date filters. Returns articles with full body text (HTML stripped, truncated at 2,000 words). |
| guardian_get_article | Fetch a single Guardian article by its ID (path slug) with full body text and all metadata. Use after guardian_search to retrieve the complete untruncated text. |
| guardian_browse | Browse The Guardian's content by section or tag, or discover available sections and tags. Four modes: section_latest, tag_latest, list_sections, list_tags. |
| Prerequisites | The Prerequisites tool exposed by this server. |
| Installation | The Installation tool exposed by this server. |
{
"mcpServers": {
"guardian-mcp-server": {
"type": "stdio",
"command": "bunx",
"args": ["@cyanheads/guardian-mcp-server@latest"],
"env": {
"MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
"MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info",
"GUARDIAN_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
}
}
}
}Configuration as documented by the project. Restart the client after saving.
A free Guardian Open Platform API key is required. Register at https://open-platform.theguardian.com/access — the non-commercial developer tier is free. Set it as
GUARDIAN_API_KEYin your MCP client config or.envfile. The server will not start without it. > > Rate limits (free tier): 5,000 requests/day, 12 calls/second. The server
| Variable | Description | Required |
|---|---|---|
| MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE | Configuration value read at startup. | Optional |
| MCP_LOG_LEVEL | Configuration value read at startup. | Optional |
| GUARDIAN_API_KEY | Credential the server authenticates with. | Yes |
Scoped local file access — read, write, search and reorganise files in directories you explicitly allow.
Search and read your Drive — Docs, Sheets and files become context your assistant can actually use.
Query, modify and analyse local SQLite databases in conversation — the fastest way to chat with a data file.
Build a programmable telecommunications stack for connecting telephony services with the Internet via a cloud-based utility.
Chat with your second brain — search, read and write vault notes through the Local REST API.
Connects AI models to an Obsidian knowledge base for direct access and manipulation of notes and folders.