wikipedia-mcp-server

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  <h1>@cyanheads/wikipedia-mcp-server</h1>
  <p><b>Search Wikipedia articles, read summaries and full text, target sections, find nearby pages, and list language editions via MCP. STDIO or Streamable HTTP.</b>
  <div>6 Tools</div>
  </p>
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[![Install in Claude Desktop](https://img.shields.io/badge/Install_in-Claude_Desktop-D97757?style=for-the-badge&logo=anthropic&logoColor=white)](https://github.com/cyanheads/wikipedia-mcp-server/releases/latest/download/wikipedia-mcp-server.mcpb) [![Install in Cursor](https://cursor.com/deeplink/mcp-install-dark.svg)](https://cursor.com/en/install-mcp?name=wikipedia-mcp-server&config=eyJjb21tYW5kIjoibnB4IiwiYXJncyI6WyIteSIsIkBjeWFuaGVhZHMvd2lraXBlZGlhLW1jcC1zZXJ2ZXIiXX0=) [![Install in VS Code](https://img.shields.io/badge/VS_Code-Install_Server-0098FF?style=for-the-badge&logo=visualstudiocode&logoColor=white)](https://vscode.dev/redirect?url=vscode:mcp/install?%7B%22name%22%3A%22wikipedia-mcp-server%22%2C%22command%22%3A%22npx%22%2C%22args%22%3A%5B%22-y%22%2C%22%40cyanheads%2Fwikipedia-mcp-server%22%5D%7D)

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**Public Hosted Server:** [https://wikipedia.caseyjhand.com/mcp](https://wikipedia.caseyjhand.com/mcp)

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---

## Overview

Wikipedia content via the MediaWiki REST API and Action API. Search articles, read summaries or targeted sections, find geotagged pages near a coordinate, and list language editions from any MCP client. Runs as a stdio process, a local Streamable HTTP server, or the public hosted endpoint above.

### Tools

| Tool | Description |
|:---|:---|
| `wikipedia_search_articles` | Full-text search across Wikipedia, returning ranked results with plain-text snippets and page IDs. |
| `wikipedia_get_summary` | Short summary for any article — plain text, Wikidata QID, description, thumbnail URL, page type, canonical URL, revision, and coordinates. |
| `wikipedia_get_article` | Full article or a targeted section as clean plain text, with section markers preserved. |
| `wikipedia_get_sections` | Table of contents with `section_index` values for targeted section reads. |
| `wikipedia_search_nearby` | Geotagged Wikipedia articles within a radius of a WGS 84 coordinate, sorted by distance. |
| `wikipedia_get_languages` | All language editions available for an article, with titles and URLs, or just the editions you ask for. |

## Capability reference

### `wikipedia_search_articles` <sub>tool</sub>

- Free-text query, ranked by relevance; returns plain-text snippets (HTML stripped), page IDs, and word counts
- `limit` is 1–50; `offset` pages further results — enrichment `nextOffset` signals more remain and is passed back as `offset`
- Wikipedia serves no result past the 10,000th for a query: an `offset` at or beyond it fails with `offset_too_large`, and a page ending on the window carries enrichment `truncated` naming the matches no offset reaches — narrow the query to bring them into range
- An empty `query` fails with `empty_query`; a whitespace-only query is a real search that simply matches nothing
- `language` selects any Wikipedia edition (default `en`)
- Best when the exact article title is unknown, or to discover multiple articles on a topic

---

### `wikipedia_get_summary` <sub>tool</sub>

- Returns the REST summary extract — a truncated fragment from the start of the lead, not the whole lead — plus the Wikidata QID (`wikibase_item`), short description, and thumbnail URL
- `url` is the canonical article URL, and `revision_id` / `last_modified` name the revision the extract was read from — `?oldid=<revision_id>` is a permanent link to it
- `latitude` / `longitude` are present for a geotagged article and pass straight to `wikipedia_search_nearby`, whose inputs carry those names; both are absent otherwise
- For the lead section in full, call `wikipedia_get_article` with `section_index: 0`
- `page_type` discriminates `standard` / `disambiguation` / `no-extract` — on `disambiguation`, re-query with `wikipedia_search_articles` for a more specific title
- Redirect pages are followed automatically
- Right tool for most encyclopedic "what is X?" lookups; use `wikipedia_get_article` for full depth

---

### `wikipedia_get_article` <sub>tool</sub>

- Without `section_index`: full article with `== Section ==` markers, unless it exceeds `WIKIPEDIA_ARTICLE_OVERFLOW_BYTES` (default 80,000 bytes) — then returns a section outline (`truncated: true`) pointing to `wikipedia_get_sections` plus a targeted `section_index` read
- With `section_index` (from `wikipedia_get_sections`): returns that section plus every nested subsection, each heading above its own body
- `section_index: 0` is the lead section — the text above the first heading, returned under the title `Introduction`
- Data tables are omitted from both paths — a section whose body is entirely a data table returns little beyond its heading; layout-only tables (multi-column lists, succession boxes) keep their content
- Page furniture — maintenance banners, sister-project and library-resource boxes, portal bars, spoken-article notices — is stripped; hatnotes are kept
- Redirect pages are followed automatically

---

### `wikipedia_get_sections` <sub>tool</sub>

- Returns section titles, heading levels, hierarchical numbering (e.g. `"2.1"`), and `section_index` values
- The first entry is the lead: `index: 0`, titled `Introduction` — Wikipedia's own table of contents starts at the first heading
- `section_index` is the integer to pass to `wikipedia_get_article` for a targeted read
- Fails with `no_sections` on a stub or very short article — read it with `wikipedia_get_article` instead
- Redirect pages are followed automatically

---

### `wikipedia_search_nearby` <sub>tool</sub>

- Returns geotagged articles sorted ascending by distance, with coordinates and `distance_meters`
- `radius_meters`: 10–10,000 (default 1000); `limit`: 1–500 (default 10) — no pagination past `limit`, so raise it or sweep narrower radii for full coverage
- Only articles with a geographic coordinate in their Wikidata record are returned
- Enrichment `truncated` flags when more articles matched than `limit` allowed

---

### `wikipedia_get_languages` <sub>tool</sub>

- Returns each edition's `language_code`, tool-usable `edition_code` (can differ, e.g. `gsw` vs `als`), article title, and URL
- Pass `edition_code` — not `language_code` — as the `language` parameter on other tools
- `editions` narrows the answer to the codes asked for, matched against both `edition_code` and `language_code`; requested codes with no article come back under `missing`, and `total_languages` stays the unfiltered count. A popular article lists hundreds of editions, so the filter is the difference between a 40 KB reply and a 1 KB one
- Fails with `no_other_languages` when the article has no translations — a filter that matches nothing is a normal response with an empty list, not a failure
- Redirect pages are followed automatically; `source_title` reports the resolved title

## Features

Built on [`@cyanheads/mcp-ts-core`](https://github.com/cyanheads/mcp-ts-core): stdio and Streamable HTTP transports, pluggable auth (`none` / `jwt` / `oauth`), swappable storage (`in-memory`, `filesystem`, `Supabase`, `Cloudflare KV/R2/D1`), structured logging with optional OpenTelemetry tracing.

Wikipedia-specific:

- Dual API integration — MediaWiki REST API (`/api/rest_v1/`) for summaries, Action API (`/w/api.php`) for search, full text, sections, geo search, and language links
- Retry and backoff on all requests; `User-Agent` header per Wikimedia API policy
- Both read paths render to the same plain-text shape — `== Heading ==` markers, one list item per line — the full article from Action API extracts, a section from the parser's own HTML for that section. A section read additionally keeps code-sample indentation and the lists inside layout tables, neither of which the extract carries
- Per-call `language` parameter on every tool — all Wikipedia language editions accessible in a single session
- Language validation against a live edition registry built from the MediaWiki `action=sitematrix` endpoint (cached 24h) — catches structurally valid but nonexistent editions before they cause timeouts

Agent-friendly output:

- `page_type` on summaries discriminates `standard` / `disambiguation` / `no-extract` — no string parsing needed
- `wikibase_item` (Wikidata QID) on summaries enables direct cross-referencing with wikidata-mcp-server
- Article text, snippets, and titles are backslash-escaped on the way into the markdown `content[]` render, so an article that writes about markup or markdown syntax reads as itself instead of being interpreted by the client; `structuredContent` carries the same text unescaped
- `section_index` on table-of-contents entries links directly to the targeted-read parameter on `wikipedia