Goodnews

What is MCP Goodnews?

MCP Goodnews is a simple Model Context Protocol (MCP) application designed to deliver curated positive and uplifting news stories. It addresses the common issue of negative news saturation by focusing solely on good news, leveraging modern Large Language Models (LLMs) for sentiment analysis.

How to use MCP Goodnews?

To use MCP Goodnews, you need to:

1. Obtain API Keys: Acquire a Cohere API Key and a NewsAPI Key.
2. Install Claude Desktop Application: Download and install the Claude Desktop Application.
3. Install uv: Install uv Python Project and Package Manager.
4. Clone the Repository: Clone the mcp-goodnews repository from GitHub.
5. Update Claude Desktop Config: Modify the claude_desktop_config.json file in your Claude Desktop application directory to include the Goodnews MCP server configuration, providing the absolute path to the cloned repository and your API keys.
6. Start or Restart Claude Desktop: Relaunch Claude Desktop. You should see a hammer tool icon, indicating the MCP tool is active.
7. Ask Claude for Good News: Use prompts like "Show me some good news from today," "What positive things happened in the world this week?", or "Give me uplifting news stories about science."

Key Features of MCP Goodnews

• Positive News Curation: Focuses exclusively on delivering uplifting and positive news.
• LLM-powered Sentiment Analysis: Utilizes Cohere LLM to analyze and rank news articles based on positive sentiment in a zero-shot setting.
• NewsAPI Integration: Fetches news articles from NewsAPI.
• MCP Application: Designed as a Model Context Protocol (MCP) application for integration with tools like Claude Desktop.

Use Cases of MCP Goodnews

• Daily Dose of Positivity: Users seeking to balance their news consumption with positive stories.
• Mental Well-being: Individuals looking to reduce exposure to negative news and improve their mood.
• LLM Application Development: Demonstrates the practical application of LLMs for sentiment analysis and content curation.

FAQ about MCP Goodnews

• What is the motivation behind MCP Goodnews? The project was inspired by the desire to highlight positive news in a world often dominated by negative headlines, building upon an earlier initiative called GoodnewsFirst but leveraging modern LLMs for improved sentiment analysis.

• What are the main requirements to run MCP Goodnews? You need a Cohere API Key, a NewsAPI Key, the Claude Desktop Application, and uv Python Project and Package Manager.

• How does MCP Goodnews determine "good news"? It uses a Cohere LLM to analyze the sentiment of news articles fetched from NewsAPI and ranks them based on their positive sentiment score.

• Can I use MCP Goodnews with other applications besides Claude Desktop? While the example usage focuses on Claude Desktop, as an MCP application, it could potentially be integrated with other MCP-compatible platforms, though specific instructions for other platforms are not provided in the documentation.

MCP Goodnews

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MCP Goodnews is a simple Model Context Protocol (MCP) application that features a server for getting good, positive, and uplifting news. This tool fetches news articles from the NewsAPI and uses a Cohere LLM to rank and return the top news articles based on positive sentiment.

Read the blog post on Medium!

Motivation

In a world where negative news often dominates headlines, Goodnews MCP aims to shine a light on more positive and uplifting news stories. This project was inspired by an earlier initiative called GoodnewsFirst, which delivered positive news daily to email subscribers — it was a really awesome project! While GoodnewsFirst predated recent breakthroughs in Large Language Models (LLMs) and relied on traditional methods for sentiment ranking, Goodnews MCP leverages modern LLMs to perform sentiment analysis in a zero-shot setting.

Example Usage: MCP Goodnews with Claude Desktop

Requirements

• Cohere API Key
• NewsAPI Key
• Claude Desktop Application
• uv Python Project and Package Manager

Clone mcp-goodnews

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/VectorInstitute/mcp-goodnews.git

In the next step, we'll need to provide the absolute path to the location of this cloned repository.

Update Claude Desktop Config to find mcp-goodnews

For Mac/Linux

# Navigate to the configuration directory
cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/config

# Edit the claude_desktop_config.json file
nano claude_desktop_config.json

For Windows

# Navigate to the configuration directory
cd %APPDATA%\Claude\config

# Edit the claude_desktop_config.json file
notepad claude_desktop_config.json

And you'll want to add an entry under mcpServers for Goodnews:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "Goodnews": {
      "command": "<absolute-path-to-bin>/uv",
      "args": [
        "--directory",
        "<absolute-path-to-cloned-repo>/mcp-goodnews/src/mcp_goodnews",
        "run",
        "server.py"
      ],
      "env": {
        "NEWS_API_KEY": "<newsapi-api-key>",
        "COHERE_API_KEY": "<cohere-api-key>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Start or Restart Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop will use the updated config to build and run the mcp-goodnews server. If successful, you will see the hammer tool in the bottom-right corner of the chat dialogue window.

Clicking the hammer tool icon will bring up a modal that lists available MCP tools. You should see fetch_list_of_goodnews listed there.

Ask Claude for Good News

Example prompts:

• "Show me some good news from today."
• "What positive things happened in the world this week?"
• "Give me uplifting news stories about science."

How It Works

1. When you request good news, the application queries the NewsAPI for recent articles
2. The Cohere LLM analyzes the sentiment of each article
3. Articles are ranked based on positive sentiment score
4. The top-ranking good news stories are returned to you through Claude

License

Apache 2.0

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Stay positive with Goodnews MCP!