hot-topics-mcp

Real-time trending-topic intelligence for AI agents — China (Weibo/Baidu/Zhihu) + US (Google Trends), plus HackerNews & StackExchange community intel. Zero dependencies, pure Python stdlib.

Built for content-creation and marketing agents that need to know what people are actually talking about right now before they write. Battle-tested in production driving a daily automated content pipeline.

Tools

Tool	What it gives the agent
get_trending	Live hot topics from 4 sources, scored against content tracks (亲子教育, AI工具, EN_kids, EN_ai, all, raw), with a built-in sensitive-topic blacklist (death/disaster/crime/politics) so agents never draft around toxic trends
get_reddit_intel	High-engagement community threads (HackerNews + StackExchange: Parenting/Workplace/Expatriates) for GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) research — the pain points real users are asking about this week

Why this exists

• Chinese trending sources (Weibo/Baidu/Zhihu) are unreachable from many overseas IPs; Google Trends is unreachable from mainland China. Agents running on either side of the firewall are blind to half the internet's conversation.
• This server multi-sources with graceful degradation: any one source failing doesn't break the pipeline.

Quick start

Requires Python 3.8+. No pip install needed.

Claude Desktop / WorkBuddy (mcp.json)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hot-topics": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/server.py"]
    }
  }
}

Then ask your agent: "What are today's trending topics in the AI工具 track?" or "Get reddit intel for the kids track and draft a post."

Example tool calls

{"name": "get_trending", "arguments": {"track": "AI工具"}}
{"name": "get_trending", "arguments": {"track": "EN_ai", "sources": ["google_trends"]}}
{"name": "get_reddit_intel", "arguments": {"track": "poa"}}

Hosted API (no install, works behind any firewall)

Don't want to run it yourself, or your network can't reach these sources? A hosted version runs 24/7 on our Singapore server — one HTTP GET, JSON back:

GET http://43.160.199.215/hotapi/v1/hot?track=EN_ai&key=YOUR_KEY
GET http://43.160.199.215/hotapi/v1/reddit?track=poa&key=YOUR_KEY
GET http://43.160.199.215/hotapi/v1/health

30-day access key: $9 → https://niebingyu.gumroad.com/l/hot-topics-api

Notes

• 10-minute in-memory cache per source; polite to upstreams.
• All sources are public endpoints used for research; respect each platform's terms.
• Protocol: MCP over stdio, JSON-RPC 2.0, protocol version 2024-11-05.

License

MIT