CKBrennan/overtone-news-mcp

An MCP server that gives any agent real-time news plus the contextual
intelligence to use it well — tone distribution, emerging stories,
narrative shifts, spike alerts, and tone-over-time charts — powered by
Overtone's publisher network.
Works with any MCP-compatible client: Claude Desktop, Claude Code,
Cursor, Windsurf, Codex, Kimi K2, and more.
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What it looks like
**Natural language queries** — ask in plain English, get contextually analysed articles:
**Global coverage analysis** — compare tone across languages and regions:
**Tone timeseries** — track how a topic's emotional coverage shifts over time:
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Why this exists
News APIs return articles. That's the easy part. The hard part is
everything an agent actually needs to reason about current events:
- What's the *tone* of coverage on a topic — is the public mood angry,
hopeful, informational, fearful?
- What's *emerging* right now that had zero coverage yesterday?
- Where is *the narrative turning* — which topics are shifting tone
fastest?
- Is there a *spike* in anger or fear around something I'm watching?
- How has tone trended *over time* on a given story?
This server exposes all of that as MCP tools, so an agent can pull the
right signal for the question it's been asked — not just a flat feed
of headlines.
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Install
The server ships as a Python package. uvx (from uv)
runs it without cluttering your global Python. Install uv once:
Then add one block to your MCP client config. uvx fetches the package
from PyPI and runs it on demand — no install step needed.
Claude Desktop
Edit ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
(macOS) or the equivalent on your platform:
Claude Code
Edit ~/.config/claude-code/mcp.json:
Cursor / Windsurf
Settings → MCP → Add server:
- **Command**: uvx
- **Args**: overtone-news-mcp
Codex
Edit ~/.codex/config.toml:
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Auth
On first tool call the server registers a free-tier API key with
Overtone and caches it at ~/.overtone/credentials. The cache is
shared with the Overtone News skill
for Claude Code, so installing both won't double-register.
For a **premium key** (higher rate and daily limits), set
OVERTONE_NEWS_API_KEY in the env block of your MCP config:
Rate limits:
| Tier | Per minute | Per day |
|---|---|---|
| auto (free, auto-provisioned) | 10 | 50 |
| manual (premium) | 60 | effectively unlimited |
To request a premium key, email business@overtone.ai.
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Environment variables
| Variable | Default | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| OVERTONE_NEWS_API_KEY | *(auto-registered)* | Use a specific key instead of auto-registering |
| OVERTONE_NEWS_API_URL | https://agentic-skills.overtone.ai | Override the API endpoint (for self-hosted or testing) |
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Tools
All tools return JSON. The agent chooses which tool fits the user's
question — you don't invoke them directly.
news
Articles on a topic, each tagged with tone, brand-safety signals,
article type, and concepts. Use for "what's happening with X".
Response includes a request_id — pass it back to report after
presenting articles so we know what was actually shown.
tone
Emotional tone distribution across recent coverage of a topic —
happy, funny, hopeful, informational, angry, sad,
fearful, plus the dominant_tone.
Use when the user asks *how* a topic is being covered, not *what*
happened.
pulse
Pollable spike detector. For each watched tone (default
angry / sad / fearful), returns spike_ratio vs. a baseline