How to Connect NewsAPI to Cursor — via MCP

💡 No install? Use cloud.anythingmcp.com directly. Sign in, click Connectors → NewsAPI, paste your credentials, mint an MCP API key — done. No Docker, no git clone, no local server.

NewsAPI + Cursor

Search worldwide news headlines, sources and articles from newsapi.org via any AI agent. 3 tools, API-key auth.

Prerequisites

See the full setup instructions baked into the connector (visible in the in-app store when you select the connector). The required environment variables for this connector are:

NEWSAPI_API_KEY

Step 1 — Get credentials

This connector wraps the NewsAPI v2 REST API (newsapi.org).

Setup:

1. Register at https://newsapi.org/register for a free Developer key.
2. Set NEWSAPI_API_KEY.

Authentication: NewsAPI accepts the key as either the X-Api-Key header (used by this adapter) OR an apiKey query string. We use the header so it doesn't appear in URL logs.

Plan limits — IMPORTANT:

• Developer (free): 100 requests / day, articles delayed by 24h, no commercial use, results capped at 100 per query.
• Paid plans: live articles, no daily cap, full historical archive.

…(continued in the in-app connector instructions)

Step 2 — Install the adapter

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/HelpCode-ai/anythingmcp/main/docker-compose.quickstart.yml -o docker-compose.yml
printf 'JWT_SECRET=%s\nENCRYPTION_KEY=%s\n' "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" > .env
docker compose up -d

Step 3 — Add the connector in Cursor

Your server URL: in AnythingMCP, open MCP Servers → the server this connector is on, and copy its URL (https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/mcp/…). Use it wherever this guide shows YOUR_SERVER_ID.

Cursor reads MCP servers from ~/.cursor/mcp.json. Add this entry:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "anythingmcp": {
      "url": "https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/mcp/YOUR_SERVER_ID",
      "headers": { "X-API-Key": "YOUR_MCP_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

1. Get your MCP API key from AnythingMCP → MCP Servers → your server → API keys.
2. Save the file and restart Cursor.
3. Open Cursor → Settings → MCP to verify NewsAPI is listed and "Connected".
4. Start chatting — all NewsAPI tools are now invokable.

Available tools

FAQ

Does Cursor support custom MCP servers on the free tier? Yes — MCP is available on Hobby, Pro and Business plans.

Next steps

• Connector landing page
• Connect to Claude
• Connect to ChatGPT
• Connect to Gemini
• Connect to Meta Muse