NYTimes

You can access the New York Times APIs through a FastMCP-based MCP server that exposes five focused tools. This setup lets you query articles, pull real-time news, retrieve popular items, browse archives, and fetch bestseller lists using a consistent MCP interface.

How to use

Connect to the NYTimes MCP server with your MCP client and start using the five available tools. Each tool returns clean, structured data that you can feed directly into your applications or agents. You can search the NYT article archive, fetch the latest news wire items, retrieve the most popular articles, view monthly archives, and access bestseller lists. All tool parameters are type-validated, and errors are reported with helpful messages to guide you toward correct usage.

Key usage patterns you’ll find most effective:

• Combine article search with date ranges to narrow results to a specific period.
• Use the News Wire tool to stream or paginate recent items for dashboards.
• Explore the Most Popular endpoints to surface trends in views, shares, or emails.
• Retrieve a monthly Archive to assemble historical collections or data sets.
• Look up Bestseller Lists for popular books and reading trends.

How to install

Prerequisites you need before starting:
- Python 3.13+ installed on your system.
- uv and uvx tooling available for running MCP servers and managing tools.
- NYT API key obtained from the NYT Developer Portal.

Install and run the NYTimes MCP server using the standard MCP setup flow:
- Install uvx and fetch the NYTimes MCP from its source.
- Prepare your NYT API key in your environment.
- Run the server in development or production mode as described below.

# Typical development setup uses a local install of the NYTimes MCP
# This snippet is for running via an MCP runner with a Git-backed source
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "nytimes": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "--from",
        "git+https://github.com/jeffmm/nytimes-mcp.git",
        "nytimes-mcp"
      ],
      "env": {
        "NYT_API_KEY": "your_api_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Configuration and environment

Set your NYT API key as an environment variable to authorize requests from the MCP server. You can place it in your shell profile, export it in the current session, or store it in a local environment file that your runtime loads.

The server is designed to validate all tool parameters and provide robust error messages when inputs are invalid or missing.

Notes, security, and troubleshooting

Security: Keep your NYT API key private. Do not commit keys to version control and prefer environment variables for sensitive data.

Rate limits: The NYT API has usage limits. Monitor calls to avoid exceeding daily or per-minute quotas, and consult the available reference resource for current limits.

Available tools

search_articles

Search NYT articles by query, date range, and other criteria. Returns articles with headline, snippet, web_url, and pub_date.

get_latest_news

Retrieve the latest items from the NYT News Wire. Supports limit, offset, source, and section filtering.

get_most_popular

Fetch the most popular NYT articles based on views, shares, or emails for a given time period.

get_archive

Get NYT articles from a specific month/year archive. Returns the full archive API response.

get_bestseller_list

Fetch NYT bestseller lists, with options for list name and pagination.