The results shown in the demo above are sample data, not real Podcast Index responses.
About
Built and maintained by Conor Bronsdon for the Chain of Thought podcast production workflow, where it surfaces guest appearances and checks feed health during research. Conor hosts Chain of Thought, a show about AI infrastructure and how practitioners actually build with it. More tools for creators live in ai-tools-for-creators. Find Conor on X at @ConorBronsdon.
Companion tools:
- Transistor MCP: Transistor.fm's official MCP server. Episodes, publishing, and analytics.
- substack-mcp: read posts and manage Substack drafts
- op3-mcp: report downloads, listener geography, and apps from OP3
- apple-podcasts-mcp: pull plays, followers, and per-episode listening from Apple Podcasts Connect
- gsc-mcp: query search performance, keywords, and sitemaps in Google Search Console
- podcast-benchmark: benchmark a show against its peers using only public data
Prerequisites
Installation
git clone https://github.com/conorbronsdon/podcastindex-mcp.git
cd podcastindex-mcp
npm install
npm run build
Configuration
Claude Desktop
Add to your Claude Desktop config (claude_desktop_config.json):
{
"mcpServers": {
"podcastindex": {
"command": "node",
"args": ["/path/to/podcastindex-mcp/build/index.js"],
"env": {
"PODCASTINDEX_API_KEY": "your-api-key",
"PODCASTINDEX_API_SECRET": "your-api-secret"
}
}
}
}
Claude Code
Add to your project's .mcp.json:
{
"mcpServers": {
"podcastindex": {
"command": "node",
"args": ["/path/to/podcastindex-mcp/build/index.js"],
"env": {
"PODCASTINDEX_API_KEY": "your-api-key",
"PODCASTINDEX_API_SECRET": "your-api-secret"
}
}
}
}
This server is entirely read-only: every tool declares the MCP tool annotation readOnlyHint: true, so clients know no call mutates anything and can skip write-consent prompts.
| Tool | Description |
|---|
search_by_person | Search for episodes where a person appeared as host or guest. Returns matches across all indexed podcasts. |
search_by_term | Full-text search across all podcasts by topic, show name, or keyword. |
search_by_title | Search for podcasts by title. |
podcast_by_feed_url | Look up a podcast by RSS feed URL. Returns feed ID, iTunes ID, categories, last update, and feed health. |
podcast_by_feed_id | Look up a podcast by its Podcast Index feed ID. Returns full metadata. |
podcast_by_itunes_id | Look up a podcast by its Apple Podcasts (iTunes) ID. |
podcast_by_guid | Look up a podcast by its podcast:guid tag value. |
trending_podcasts | Get currently trending podcasts, with optional language and category filters. |
episodes_by_feed_id | Get episodes for a specific podcast by feed ID. |
episode_by_id | Look up a single episode by its Podcast Index episode ID. |
episodes_live | Get episodes that are currently live (actively streaming). |
recent_episodes | Get the most recently published episodes across the entire index. |
recent_feeds | Get the most recently updated podcast feeds across the index. |
recent_new_feeds | Get podcast feeds newly added to the index. |
value_by_feed_id | Get value4value (lightning payment) info for a podcast by feed ID. |
value_by_feed_url | Get value4value (lightning payment) info for a podcast by feed URL. |
categories_list | Get the full list of Podcast Index categories and their IDs. |
stats_current | Get current aggregate statistics for the Podcast Index. |
Typed errors
API failures are mapped to a typed error hierarchy (PodcastIndexError base, with AuthenticationError, RateLimitError, ValidationError, NotFoundError, and ServerError subclasses keyed off HTTP status) in src/errors.ts. Every tool call still returns the same isError: true response shape on failure — the typed hierarchy just makes the message specific to what went wrong (bad credentials vs. rate limiting vs. a malformed request, etc.) instead of a single generic "API error" string.
Example Prompts
Once configured, you can ask Claude things like:
- "Search Podcast Index for all episodes featuring Satya Nadella as a guest"
- "What are the trending technology podcasts right now?"
- "Look up the feed health for https://feeds.transistor.fm/chain-of-thought and list the last 5 episodes"
Development
Build the project:
Watch for changes during development:
- Add the API method to
src/api-client.ts
- Add type guard and argument types to
src/types.ts
- Add the tool definition and handler to
src/tool-handlers.ts
- Rebuild with
npm run build
Contributing
Issues and pull requests are welcome. If there is a Podcast Index endpoint you want exposed as a tool, open an issue describing the use case, or follow the steps above and open a PR. Bug reports should include the tool name and the arguments you passed.
Acknowledgments
This server exists because of the free, open Podcast Index API and its documentation — all tools here are thin wrappers over that API.
The expanded endpoint coverage and typed-error design in this release were inspired by Craig Lawton's podcastindex-mcp-server, an earlier MCP server for the same API. No code from that project was used here; this server's implementation, tool schemas, and error-handling code were written independently against the official API docs.
Disclaimer
This is an independent personal project, not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by any company. All views expressed are my own.
License
MIT
