MCP Server for AI Agents: Discourse Forum Search & Threads

An always-on Model Context Protocol (MCP) server and batch Actor that searches public Discourse forums, lists latest and top topics, lists categories and extracts full discussion threads as clean text (fenced code blocks and links preserved, accepted answers flagged). Built for AI agents (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, OpenAI Agents, LangChain), support research, developer relations and community monitoring.

No proxies, no browser, no logins, no cookies: only the public Discourse JSON endpoints (search.json, latest.json, top.json, t/{id}.json, categories.json) are called.

What you get

item_type	Mode	What it is
search_result	search	One matching post joined with its topic (title, URL, excerpt, likes, views, replies, solved flag)
topic_summary	latest, top	One topic from the latest or top list
thread	thread	A full thread: topic metadata plus posts with clean content_text and the accepted answer
category	categories	One forum category with topic and post counts

Preset forums

Use the key or the domain in forums; any other public Discourse domain or https:// URL works too (up to 10 forums per call).

Key	Domain
openai	community.openai.com
huggingface	discuss.huggingface.co
discourse	meta.discourse.org
python	discuss.python.org
rust	users.rust-lang.org
pytorch	discuss.pytorch.org
cloudflare	community.cloudflare.com
n8n	community.n8n.io
obsidian	forum.obsidian.md
julia	discourse.julialang.org
golang	forum.golangbridge.org
kubernetes	discuss.kubernetes.io
flyio	community.fly.io
render	community.render.com
homeassistant	community.home-assistant.io

Input

Field	Type	Default
mode	search, latest, top, thread, categories	search
query	string (required when mode is search, max 200 chars)	mcp server (applied by the Apify platform when the input omits it, so an empty {} input runs)
forums	string[] (preset keys, domains or https URLs, 1 to 10)	["discourse"]
topic_ids	string[] of ids or topic URLs (mode thread, max 50)	none
period	daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, all	weekly
include_thread_posts	boolean (mode search)	false
max_posts_per_thread	integer 1 to 100	20
max_items	integer 1 to 500	25
max_total_charge_usd	number or null	no cap

camelCase aliases (topicIds, includeThreadPosts, maxPostsPerThread, maxItems, maxTotalChargeUsd) are accepted. Invalid input is rejected with INVALID_INPUT_ZERO_CHARGE before any network call or charge.

Batch input examples

Search two forums:

{"mode": "search", "query": "mcp server", "forums": ["discourse", "openai"], "max_items": 25}

Search and attach thread text to each hit:

{"mode": "search", "query": "function calling status:solved", "forums": ["openai"], "include_thread_posts": true, "max_posts_per_thread": 10}

Latest topics:

{"mode": "latest", "forums": ["huggingface", "pytorch"], "max_items": 50}

Top topics of the month:

{"mode": "top", "forums": ["python"], "period": "monthly", "max_items": 30}

Full threads (ids bind to the first forum, or use full URLs):

{"mode": "thread", "forums": ["discourse"], "topic_ids": ["12345", "https://community.openai.com/t/some-topic/67890"], "max_posts_per_thread": 50}

Categories:

{"mode": "categories", "forums": ["n8n", "obsidian"]}

Output examples

search_result:

{
  "item_type": "search_result", "forum_domain": "meta.discourse.org", "forum_url": "https://meta.discourse.org",
  "topic_id": 12345, "topic_title": "How to build an MCP server plugin", "topic_slug": "how-to-build-an-mcp-server-plugin",
  "topic_url": "https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-build-an-mcp-server-plugin/12345",
  "post_id": 98765, "post_number": 3, "post_url": "https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-build-an-mcp-server-plugin/12345/3",
  "author_username": "alice", "author_name": "Alice", "excerpt": "You can expose the JSON API as an MCP server...",
  "like_count": 4, "views": 820, "posts_count": 9, "reply_count": 7, "has_accepted_answer": true, "tags": ["plugin"],
  "category_id": 7, "created_at": "2026-01-10T09:00:00.000Z", "last_posted_at": "2026-01-12T10:30:00.000Z", "uid": "<sha256>"
}

topic_summary (source is latest or top, period is null for latest):

{
  "item_type": "topic_summary", "forum_domain": "discuss.huggingface.co", "topic_id": 555, "topic_title": "Fine-tuning question",
  "topic_url": "https://discuss.huggingface.co/t/fine-tuning-question/555", "excerpt": "I am trying to...", "views": 120,
  "like_count": 2, "posts_count": 4, "reply_count": 3, "has_accepted_answer": false, "closed": false, "archived": false,
  "pinned": false, "tags": [], "category_id": 9, "last_poster_username": "bob", "source": "top", "period": "weekly", "uid": "<sha256>"
}

thread (posts has at most max_posts_per_thread entries):

{
  "item_type": "thread", "forum_domain": "meta.discourse.org", "topic_id": 12345, "topic_title": "How to build an MCP server plugin",
  "has_accepted_answer": true, "accepted_answer_post_number": 3, "author_username": "alice", "posts_returned": 2,
  "posts": [
    {"post_id": 1, "post_number": 1, "author_username": "alice", "content_text": "How do I...\n```ruby\nputs 1\n```", "like_count": 1, "is_accepted_answer": false},
    {"post_id": 3, "post_number": 3, "author_username": "bob", "content_text": "Use the API (https://example.com/docs)", "like_count": 4, "is_accepted_answer": true}
  ],
  "uid": "<sha256>"
}

category:

{
  "item_type": "category", "forum_domain": "community.n8n.io", "category_id": 12, "name": "Questions", "slug": "questions",
  "description_text": "Ask the community", "topic_count": 4100, "post_count": 21000, "color": "0088CC", "parent_category_id": null,
  "category_url": "https://community.n8n.io/c/questions/12", "uid": "<sha256>"
}

Standby MCP usage

Standby URL: https://mutualistic-housing--discourse-forum-mcp.apify.actor/mcp (authenticate with your Apify API token).

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "discourse-forums": {
      "url": "https://mutualistic-housing--discourse-forum-mcp.apify.actor/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer <APIFY_TOKEN>" }
    }
  }
}

Tools:

• search_forums: query (required), forums, max_items, include_thread_posts.
• get_latest_or_top_topics: forums, mode (latest or top), period, max_items.
• get_thread: forum, topic_id (id or URL), max_posts.
• list_forums_and_categories: forum optional; without it the preset forums are listed, with it that forum's categories.

curl -X POST "https://mutualistic-housing--discourse-forum-mcp.apify.actor/mcp" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"search_forums","arguments":{"query":"mcp server","forums":["discourse","openai"],"max_items":10}}}'

GET / and GET /health return {"status":"ok","actor":"discourse-forum-mcp",...}.

Security and limits

• https only: bare hostnames become https://host; http://, file: and other schemes are rejected.
• SSRF protections: credentials in URLs, non-443 ports, .. path traversal, query strings and fragments are rejected; IP literals, localhost, .local and .internal names are blocked; DNS results that resolve to loopback, private, link-local, multicast or unspecified addresses are refused; redirects must stay on the same host over https.
• Bounds: at most 500 items per run, 10 forums per call, 100 posts per thread, a 120 s global deadline, a 15 s per-request timeout and a 2 MiB response size cap.
• MCP server: request bodies above 64 KiB return 413, POST /mcp requires Content-Type: application/json (415 otherwise) and at most 8 tool calls run concurrently (503 when busy).
• Rate limits (429) and 5xx responses are retried with back-off; per-forum failures are reported in errors and never abort other forums.

Pricing

Pay per event: $0.001 per result-item (result-item: one search result, topic summary, thread or category); the actor-start event is free. max_items and max_total_charge_usd are hard caps enforced in code, so a run never charges more than you configure. Invalid input and empty results are never charged.

Related MCP Servers by Mutualistic Labs

Actor	Covers	Store	Standby MCP URL
Multi-ATS Career Jobs Search MCP	Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, SmartRecruiters, Workable	https://apify.com/mutualistic_housing/multi-ats-career-jobs-mcp	https://mutualistic-housing--multi-ats-career-jobs-mcp.apify.actor/mcp
Google Ads Transparency & Ad Spy MCP	SearchCreatives, SearchSuggestions, content.js ad-copy & video metadata	https://apify.com/mutualistic_housing/google-ads-transparency-mcp	https://mutualistic-housing--google-ads-transparency-mcp.apify.actor/mcp
Multi-Engine Keyword & Autocomplete MCP	Google, YouTube, Amazon, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Brave + google:suggestrelevance & search intent	https://apify.com/mutualistic_housing/keyword-autocomplete-mcp	https://mutualistic-housing--keyword-autocomplete-mcp.apify.actor/mcp
Discourse Forum Search & Threads MCP	community.openai.com, discuss.huggingface.co, meta.discourse.org + any public Discourse	https://apify.com/mutualistic_housing/discourse-forum-mcp	https://mutualistic-housing--discourse-forum-mcp.apify.actor/mcp