What is the APITube MCP server?#

The APITube MCP server is a hosted Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that connects AI assistants — like Cursor, Claude Desktop, VS Code and Windsurf — directly to the APITube News API. Instead of writing HTTP requests, you ask for news in plain language and the assistant turns your question into a News API call and reads back the results. The server lives at https://mcp.apitube.io/, needs no installation, and you authenticate with your normal APITube API key.

What is the Model Context Protocol (MCP)?#

The Model Context Protocol is an open standard that lets an AI assistant call external tools on your behalf. APITube runs the server side of that standard for you: a single hosted endpoint that exposes the News API as MCP tools the assistant can call. Because APITube hosts the server, there is nothing to install, run or keep updated — you point your assistant at the URL, add your API key, and it is ready.

The server identifies itself as “APITube News MCP-Server”, version 1.0.0. It speaks the latest MCP protocol version and negotiates down to whatever version your client asks for, so both current and older assistants can connect.

What can you do with the APITube MCP server?#

Once connected, you search and filter global news from inside your assistant without leaving it. The APITube MCP server exposes two tools:

• A news-search tool that runs a full News API query — filtering by title and keywords, language, sentiment, entities (people, organizations, locations, brands, events), categories, topics, industries, media (images and videos), source quality and political bias, date ranges and breaking-news status, with sorting by relevance, date, engagement or quality.
• A suggest tool that resolves a name or prefix — say “Tesla” or “spo” — to the exact APITube ID (entity, category, topic or industry) the search filters need. The assistant calls suggest first when it needs a precise ID, then feeds that ID into the search.

You normally never type a tool name yourself: you ask a question and the assistant picks the tool. The server also ships four ready-made prompts, surfaced as slash commands in MCP clients — monitor_company, topic_sentiment, breaking_news and compare_coverage. Typical things you can ask:

Find positive breaking news about Tesla in English from the last week
Show me long-form articles about SpaceX with images
Compare the volume and sentiment of coverage for Apple vs Google

How do you connect and authenticate the MCP server?#

The hosted server speaks HTTP JSON-RPC, so you pass your key in the Authorization: Bearer header. Listing the available tools is open, but every actual search is authenticated: the server validates your key against your APITube account — the same key that works on the News API — before running the query. Get a key first (see where to find and create your API key), and the same authentication rules apply.

For clients with native remote-server support (Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf), add the URL and header to the MCP config:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apitube-news": {
            "url": "https://mcp.apitube.io/",
            "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" }
        }
    }
}

Claude Desktop launches MCP servers as local processes, so bridge the hosted server with mcp-remote:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apitube-news": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://mcp.apitube.io/",
                     "--header", "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"]
        }
    }
}

Restart the assistant after saving the config. Treat the key like a password — see API key security best practices.

Can you use the MCP server without an AI assistant?#

Yes. The MCP server is also a plain JSON-RPC API over POST https://mcp.apitube.io/, so you can call it with curl or any HTTP client. A quick reachability check is the initialize method, which needs no key:

curl -X POST https://mcp.apitube.io/ \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2024-11-05","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"test","version":"1.0.0"}},"id":1}'

A healthy server replies with serverInfo.name set to “APITube News MCP-Server”. For the full request and response payloads, see the official MCP Server reference.

Common Questions#

• Do I need to install anything?
• Which API key does the MCP server use?
• Why does a request fail with 401 ER0230 or 403 ER0603?
• How is the MCP server different from the REST News API?

Do I need to install anything?#

No. The APITube MCP server is hosted at https://mcp.apitube.io/ with no install, no local process to run and no maintenance. You only edit your assistant’s MCP config to add the URL and your API key. Clients that cannot talk to a remote server directly (such as Claude Desktop) use the mcp-remote bridge, which npx downloads on demand.

Which API key does the MCP server use?#

Your normal APITube API key — the same one you use on the News API. Pass it in the Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY header (or X-API-Key). The server validates it against your account on every tool call, so MCP usage draws on the same key, plan and quota as your direct API requests.

Why does a request fail with 401 ER0230 or 403 ER0603?#

A 401 with code ER0230 means the API key has expired — renew or extend its expiry date. A 403 with code ER0603 means the key is not permitted to call the MCP tools; grant the key the matching endpoint permissions (scopes), or use a key with full access. A 401 with code ER0201 means no key reached the server — the Authorization: Bearer (or X-API-Key) header is missing, so check your config; a 401 with code ER0202 means the key itself is invalid or revoked.

How is the MCP server different from the REST News API?#

They return the same news data from the same News API. The MCP server is a natural-language front end for AI assistants, while the REST News API is for code you write yourself. Use the MCP server to research and prototype inside Cursor or Claude; use the REST API when you build an application. Both authenticate with the same key.