Overview

Pure.md MCP Server exposes pure.md’s web-fetching and markdown conversion capabilities to MCP-compatible clients (Model Context Protocol). It acts as a local MCP server that teaches clients how to fetch webpages, render JavaScript-heavy sites, and convert HTML/PDF/images into clean Markdown. The server includes automatic proxy rotation and other anti-bot measures so agents can reliably retrieve content that would otherwise be blocked.

Think of it as a CDN-like markdown delivery layer for LLMs: requests are proxied through pure.md, transformed into Markdown, and globally cached for later reuse. This reduces load on origin sites, helps avoid bot detection, and gives local tools consistent, readable web content for summarization, search, and reasoning workflows.

Features

Headless JavaScript rendering for SPAs and dynamic pages
Automatic proxy rotation and anti-bot techniques to reduce blocks
Converts HTML, PDFs, and images into Markdown-friendly output
Global caching (CDN-like) so repeated requests are fast and origin-friendly
MCP-compatible server: plug into Cursor, Windsurf, Claude Desktop, and other MCP clients
Optional API key for higher rate limits; anonymous usage supported
Includes two CLI/helpers: unblock-url and search-web for common tasks

Installation / Configuration

Install and run the MCP server via npx (no global install required):

# Run once via npx
npx -y puremd-mcp

Set an API key (optional — leave empty to use anonymously). The server reads PUREMD_API_KEY from environment:

Env var	Description
PUREMD_API_KEY	Optional API token from https://pure.md. Leave as “” to run anonymously.

Example (bash):

export PUREMD_API_KEY="your_token_here"
npx -y puremd-mcp

Client configuration examples — add an MCP server entry that launches the local MCP implementation using the same npx command.

Cursor (~/.cursor/mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pure.md": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "puremd-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "PUREMD_API_KEY": "<TOKEN>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Windsurf (./codeium/windsurf/model_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pure.md": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "puremd-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "PUREMD_API_KEY": "<TOKEN>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pure.md": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "puremd-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "PUREMD_API_KEY": "<TOKEN>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Install via Smithery (automates client install for Claude):

npx -y @smithery/cli install @puremd/puremd-mcp --client claude

Available Tools

The MCP package ships with helper utilities designed for common tasks. Invoke them via npx or through MCP clients that execute the binary.

unblock-url — Fetch a single URL and return the page rendered and converted into Markdown while using proxy rotation to avoid blocks.
search-web — Run a web search for a query and concatenate the most relevant results into a single Markdown document.

Example CLI usage:

# Convert a page to Markdown
npx -y puremd-mcp unblock-url "https://example.com/article"

# Perform a search and get combined markdown results
npx -y puremd-mcp search-web "latest space telescope discoveries"

(Exact CLI flags may evolve; check the repository for the latest usage.)

Use Cases

LLM context augmentation: Provide long-form, clean Markdown of web pages to an LLM prompt to improve retrieval augmentation and summarization.
Agent web access: Equip local agents (Cursor, Claude Desktop, etc.) with an unblocker so they can fetch pages despite site bot protections.
Research and note-taking: Convert academic articles or docs (including PDFs) to Markdown for easier annotation, diffs, and syncing with note apps.
Web scraping for content extraction: Quickly produce Markdown-friendly versions of pages for downstream parsing, citation, or archiving.
Search aggregation: Aggregate search results into a single markdown document for faster review or prompt consumption.

Resources

Project on GitHub: https://github.com/puremd/puremd-mcp
Pure.md (service and API): https://pure.md
Model Context Protocol (MCP) overview: https://modelcontextprotocol.io/introduction

If you are new to MCP, start by installing via npx with an optional PUREMD_API_KEY, add the server entry to your MCP client’s configuration, and test with unblock-url on a known site. The repository contains the latest command and subcommand documentation.

Pure.md MCP Server: Markdown with Proxy Rotation