Entra News MCP Server
Provides a searchable knowledge base over the Entra.news archive, enabling natural language queries for Microsoft Entra announcements, features, and community tools. Users can perform hybrid semantic searches, retrieve specific newsletter issues, and discover mentioned GitHub projects or PowerShell tools.
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entra-news-mcp
A searchable knowledge MCP over Entra.news β Merill Fernando's curated weekly digest of Microsoft Entra news, features, and community tools.
What is this?
Entra.news is a high-signal, curated newsletter covering Microsoft Entra (Azure AD) features, announcements, and community tools β published weekly since mid-2023.
This MCP server exposes the full historical archive as a natural language search interface. Ask questions and get sourced answers directly from past issues β including issue number, date, and canonical URL.
Zero per-user infrastructure. Users install an NPX package. That's it.
Quick Start
Claude Desktop
Add to your Claude Desktop config (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS, %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json on Windows):
{
"mcpServers": {
"entra-news-mcp": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["entra-news-mcp"]
}
}
}
Restart Claude Desktop. The database (~15β20 MB) will be downloaded on first launch and cached in ~/.entra-news-mcp/.
Cursor / Copilot Studio / Any MCP Host
{
"mcpServers": {
"entra-news-mcp": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "entra-news-mcp"]
}
}
}
Semantic Search (Optional)
By default the server uses keyword search (BM25 via FTS5). For significantly better result quality, set your OpenAI API key:
{
"mcpServers": {
"entra-news-mcp": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["entra-news-mcp"],
"env": {
"OPENAI_API_KEY": "sk-..."
}
}
}
}
Local Database Cache
On first launch the server downloads the database (~15β20 MB) from GitHub Releases and caches it locally:
| Platform | Cache location |
|---|---|
| Windows | %USERPROFILE%\.entra-news-mcp\ |
| macOS / Linux | ~/.entra-news-mcp/ |
The server checks for a newer database release once per week. If you want to force an immediate re-download (e.g. after a new issue has been ingested), delete the cache folder and restart your MCP host:
Windows (PowerShell):
Remove-Item "$env:USERPROFILE\.entra-news-mcp" -Recurse -Force
macOS / Linux:
rm -rf ~/.entra-news-mcp
Available MCP Tools
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
search_entra_news | Semantic + keyword hybrid search over all issues. Returns sourced excerpts. |
get_issue | Retrieve the full content of a specific issue by number or date. |
list_issues | Browse the archive with optional year/month filtering. |
find_tool_mentions | Discover community tools and GitHub projects mentioned in the archive. |
Example queries
- "What did Entra.news cover about Conditional Access in 2024?"
- "Show me the issue from March 2025"
- "What PowerShell tools for Entra have been mentioned?"
- "Has there been coverage of Verified ID?"
- "List all issues from 2024"
Architecture
Substack API (entra.news/api/v1/posts)
β
βΌ
Node.js ingestion script β OpenAI text-embedding-3-small
β
βΌ
SQLite + sqlite-vec (~15β20 MB)
β
βΌ
GitHub Release asset βββ NPX MCP Server
ββ Downloads DB on first run
ββ Checks for updates weekly
ββ Local vector + FTS search
Cost: ~$0.01/week (embeddings on new issues only). Zero hosting.
Running the Ingestion Pipeline
Note: You only need to do this if you're maintaining your own fork or building the initial index. End users just run
npx entra-news-mcpβ the database is downloaded automatically.
Prerequisites
- Node.js 18+
- An OpenAI API key (
text-embedding-3-smallaccess)
Full ingest (first time)
# Set your API key
$env:OPENAI_API_KEY = "sk-..."
# Run the ingestion pipeline
./scripts/ingest.ps1
Or directly with Node.js:
export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
npm install && npm run build
node dist/scripts/ingest.js
Incremental update (new issues only)
./scripts/ingest.ps1 -Incremental
node dist/scripts/ingest.js --incremental
The output database (entra-news.db) should then be uploaded as a GitHub Release asset β the GitHub Actions workflow handles this automatically on a weekly schedule.
Automated Weekly Updates
A GitHub Actions workflow (.github/workflows/weekly-update.yml) runs every Friday at 14:00 UTC:
- Downloads the current database from GitHub Releases
- Runs the incremental ingestion pipeline
- Publishes the updated database as a new GitHub Release
Required secret: Add OPENAI_API_KEY to your repository secrets (Settings β Secrets).
Development
npm install
npm run build # Compile TypeScript
npm start # Run the MCP server
Project structure
src/
index.ts # Entry point
server.ts # MCP server + tool registration
db/
client.ts # SQLite + sqlite-vec client, DB download/cache
tools/
search.ts # search_entra_news tool
get-issue.ts # get_issue tool
list-issues.ts # list_issues tool
find-tool-mentions.ts # find_tool_mentions tool
utils/
embeddings.ts # OpenAI embedding helper
scripts/
ingest.ts # Full ingestion pipeline (TypeScript)
ingest.ps1 # PowerShell wrapper for ingestion
.github/workflows/
weekly-update.yml # Automated weekly update
Permissions & Content
The Entra.news content is Β© Merill Fernando & Joshua Fernando. This tool accesses the publicly available Substack API (not scraping) and is intended for personal/community use. Please reach out to hey@entra.news before any public deployment.
Author
Built by Darren Robinson.
Entra.news by Merill Fernando.
