Wikipedia MCP Server

Search and retrieve content from Wikipedia through the Model Context Protocol. This server wraps the Wikipedia MediaWiki API and REST API so any MCP client can look up articles, pull full text, or grab quick summaries without needing API keys or authentication.

What it does

• Search articles -- find Wikipedia pages by keyword, get back titles, snippets, and page IDs
• Read full articles -- fetch the complete plain-text content of any article
• Get summaries -- pull a concise summary and description for quick reference

Everything comes from the public Wikipedia API, so there's nothing to configure on that side.

Tools

search_wikipedia

Search Wikipedia for articles matching a query.

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
query	string	yes	Keywords or phrase to search for
limit	number	no	Number of results (1-10, default 5)

Returns a list of matching articles with their title, snippet, page ID, and word count.

get_article

Retrieve the full plain-text content of a Wikipedia article.

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
title	string	yes	The exact article title (e.g. "Solar System")

Returns the article title, page ID, and the full text extract.

get_article_summary

Get a brief summary of a Wikipedia article.

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
title	string	yes	The exact article title

Returns the article title, short description, and a condensed extract.

MCP client setup

To connect this server to your MCP client, add it as a remote MCP server using the deployed URL with the /mcp endpoint. For example:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "wikipedia": {
            "type": "url",
            "url": "https://<your-deployed-url>/mcp"
        }
    }
}

No API keys or environment variables are needed -- Wikipedia's API is fully open.

Examples

Searching for articles:

Use search_wikipedia with a query like "quantum computing" to get a list of relevant Wikipedia pages. Adjust limit to control how many results come back.

Reading an article:

Pass the exact title from a search result into get_article to pull the full text. Useful when you need detailed information on a topic.

Quick lookups:

Use get_article_summary when you just need a one-paragraph overview without the full article content.

How it works

The server uses two Wikipedia APIs under the hood:

• MediaWiki Action API (action=query) for search and full article extraction
• REST API (/page/summary/) for short summaries

All responses are returned as plain text (HTML tags stripped from search snippets). No rate limiting or authentication is required for typical usage.