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Tools

11 tools for working with ReliefWeb humanitarian data:

Tool	Description
reliefweb_search_reports	Search humanitarian reports with filtering by country, disaster, format, theme, language, source, and date
reliefweb_get_report	Fetch a single report by numeric ID with full body text and metadata
reliefweb_search_disasters	Search disasters by type, country, status, GLIDE number, and date range
reliefweb_get_disaster	Fetch a disaster record with profile, key content links, appeals, and response plans
reliefweb_get_country	Fetch a country profile by ISO3 code with overview, appeals, and curated links
reliefweb_list_countries	List all countries tracked by ReliefWeb, filterable to active humanitarian situations
reliefweb_search_jobs	Search humanitarian job listings by country, organization, career category, and experience level
reliefweb_get_job	Fetch a job posting by numeric ID with the full vacancy description and application instructions
reliefweb_search_training	Search training and learning opportunities by format, country, career category, and date — upcoming starts by default
reliefweb_get_training	Fetch a training listing by numeric ID with the full description, registration instructions, and cost detail
reliefweb_list_sources	Browse contributing organizations by name and type

Oversized records

The five reliefweb_get_* tools never truncate. Under a fixed byte budget they return the record whole; over it they return a complete section outline — every section, its real serialized size, and how to reach it — and a sections: [...] re-call returns exactly the named sections plus identity metadata. The re-call is self-contained: the record is re-fetched from its ID and sliced, so nothing has to be replayed. Both modes carry the same information in structuredContent and content[].

The resources always return the whole record — a resource read has no way to name sections, so reach for the tool when a record is too large.

Curated-profile archives

A country or disaster profile returns only what ReliefWeb currently curates in each of its three link lists. Each list also has an archive, thousands of entries deep for a long-running crisis — Syria carries 2,328 archived key content links and 120 archived appeals and response plans. reliefweb_get_country and reliefweb_get_disaster page that archive on request:

{ "iso3": "SYR", "archive": { "list": "keyContent", "offset": 0, "limit": 25 } }

The response replaces the profile with one page: the list it came from, the true total, how many entries it holds, its offset, the entries, and the next offset while more remain — absent once the page reaches the end. Lists are keyContent, appealsResponsePlans, and usefulLinks, named for the fields the active half lands on.

sections and archive are alternative modes and a call carrying both is rejected: sections slices the record, archive replaces it with a page. A record over the response budget still answers an archive call with the page — a page is bounded by limit and carries no record prose, so it never outlines.

reliefweb_search_reports

Search humanitarian reports on ReliefWeb with rich filtering.

• Full-text search across title, body, and key metadata fields
• Filtering by country (ISO3), disaster ID, format, theme, language, and source organization
• Date range filtering on source publication date — a bare 2024-01-15 is accepted alongside full ISO 8601
• Raw filter object for compound conditions not covered by named params
• Pagination via offset and limit (up to 1,000 per call)
• Format is a closed set: News and Press Release, Situation Report, Map, Infographic, Analysis, Other, Assessment, Manual and Guideline, Appeal, UN Document, Evaluation and Lessons Learned — matched ignoring case, spacing, and punctuation; anything else is rejected with the list
• include_archived has no effect here — reports have no archived class, so all of them are in scope by default
• Returns paginated summaries — use reliefweb_get_report to fetch full body text
• Rate limit: 1,000 calls/day

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reliefweb_get_report

Fetch a single ReliefWeb report by its numeric ID with full body text.

• Full body HTML, all metadata, and file attachment URLs
• Use after reliefweb_search_reports to retrieve document content (10–100KB each)
• Over the response budget, returns a section outline instead; sections: ["body"] pulls the body back on its own
• Returns structured not_found when the ID doesn't exist

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reliefweb_search_disasters

Search active and historical disasters on ReliefWeb.

• Filtering by disaster type (Earthquake, Flood, Cyclone, etc.), country, and status
• GLIDE number lookup for cross-system disaster correlation
• Date range filtering on disaster creation date — a bare 2024-01-15 is accepted alongside full ISO 8601
• Status values: alert, ongoing, past, alert-archive; multiple values comma-separated, matched ignoring case, spacing, and punctuation
• Optional include_archived=true to reach alert-archive entries, which the default preset hides
• Returns IDs for use with reliefweb_get_disaster and as disaster_id filter in reliefweb_search_reports

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reliefweb_get_disaster

Fetch a disaster record by ReliefWeb numeric ID with full details.

• Full description, profile overview, affected countries, and GLIDE number
• Currently-active curated key content links from the ReliefWeb editorial team (the present set, not the full archive)
• Currently-active appeals and response plans linked to the disaster
• Currently-active useful external links curated by ReliefWeb editors
• Major disasters run to tens of KB of prose; over the response budget the record comes back as a section outline, and sections: ["description"] or sections: ["profileOverview"] pulls one narrative at a time
• archive: { list: "keyContent" } pages the archived entries each curated list leaves out

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reliefweb_get_country

Fetch a country profile from ReliefWeb by ISO3 code.

• Situation overview text curated by OCHA editors
• Currently-active key content links maintained by ReliefWeb editors (the present curated set, not the full archive)
• Currently-active humanitarian appeals and response plans
• Currently-active useful external links for the country
• Country profiles are the authoritative situation summary for humanitarian responders
• archive: { list: "keyContent" } pages the archived entries each curated list leaves out — 2,328 of them for Syria
• Carries the same outline-and-sections behavior as the other detail tools, though an active-only profile is small enough that it rarely reaches the budget

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reliefweb_list_countries

List all countries and territories tracked by ReliefWeb.

• Optional crisis_only=true to limit to active humanitarian situations (status ongoing)
• Returns ISO3 codes, status, and canonical URLs — use ISO3 with reliefweb_get_country
• Pagination up to 1,000 entries per call

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reliefweb_search_jobs

Search humanitarian job listings on ReliefWeb.

• Filtering by country, organization short name, career category, theme, and experience level
• Career category values: Programme and Project Management, Information and Communications Technology, Logistics and Telecommunications, and others
• Returns current open positions — expired postings excluded by default
• Optional include_archived=true to search expired postings too; the archive dwarfs the open set, so use it for labour-market history rather than a hiring snapshot
• Sortable by newest posting (date.created:desc, default) or soonest closing (date.closing:asc)
• Pagination with closing date and canonical URL per listing
• Returns IDs for use with reliefweb_get_job

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reliefweb_get_job

Fetch a job posting by ReliefWeb numeric ID with everything needed to evaluate and apply.

• Full vacancy description and application instructions — neither is in search results
• Posting status, indexed / closing / last-modified dates, hiring organization, countries, career category, experience level, and job type
• Both canonical URLs (the readable alias and the node URL)
• Reaches expired postings as well as open ones
• Over the response budget, returns a section outline; sections: ["howToApply"] pulls the instructions without the whole description
• Returns structured not_found pointing back at reliefweb_search_jobs

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reliefweb_search_training

Search humanitarian training and learning opportunities.

• Covers on-site and online capacity-building events
• Filtering by country, source, format, career category, and language
• Date range filtering on training start date (date_start_from / date_start_to) — a bare 2024-06-01 is accepted alongside full ISO 8601
• Scoped to training starting from now when neither bound is given; supply either one to search an explicit range, including a historical one
• Optional include_archived=true to search concluded listings too; it also drops the start-from-now default bound, so an otherwise unbounded search reaches the whole record
• Ordered by soonest start date by default (date.start:asc); override with sort
• Distinct from report date fields — uses date.start / date.end
• Returns IDs for use with reliefweb_get_training

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reliefweb_get_training

Fetch a training listing by ReliefWeb numeric ID with everything needed to evaluate and register.

• Full description and registration instructions — neither is in search results
• Cost class and the organizer's fee detail, plus the organizer's own event URL
• Listing status, start / end / registration / indexed dates, host cities, format, type, listing and delivery languages, and organizing source
• Both canonical URLs (the readable alias and the node URL)
• Reaches concluded listings as well as current ones
• Over the response budget, returns a section outline; sections: ["cost", "feeInformation", "howToRegister"] pulls just the practicalities
• Returns structured not_found pointing back at reliefweb_search_training

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reliefweb_list_sources

Browse organizations that contribute content to ReliefWeb.

• Optional filtering by name text or organization type (Government, International Organization, Non-governmental Organization, Academic and Research Institution, Media, Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement, Other)
• Returns short names, types, organization URLs, and homepage URLs
• Use shortname with the source filter in reliefweb_search_reports, reliefweb_search_jobs, and reliefweb_search_training

Resources and prompt

Type	Name	Description
Resource	reliefweb://reports/{id}	Full report record by numeric ID — metadata, body text, and file URLs. The ID segment must be digits only
Resource	reliefweb://disasters/{id}	Disaster record by numeric ID — type, status, GLIDE, description, and content links. The ID segment must be digits only
Resource	reliefweb://countries/{iso3}	Country profile by ISO3 code — overview, situation summary, and active response plans
Prompt	reliefweb_crisis_briefing	Generate a structured humanitarian briefing for a country or disaster

Features

Built on @cyanheads/mcp-ts-core:

• Declarative tool definitions — single file per tool, framework handles registration and validation
• Unified error handling across all tools
• Pluggable auth (none, jwt, oauth)
• Swappable storage backends: in-memory, filesystem, Supabase, Cloudflare KV/R2/D1
• Structured logging with optional OpenTelemetry tracing
• Runs locally (stdio/HTTP) or on Cloudflare Workers from the same codebase

ReliefWeb-specific:

• Full coverage of six ReliefWeb content types: reports, disasters, countries, jobs, training, sources
• Compound filter builder supporting nested AND/OR conditions for the ReliefWeb API v2
• RELIEFWEB_APP_NAME validated at startup (required by the API since November 2025)
• 1,000 calls/day quota awareness — prominently documented on each tool

Agent-friendly output:

• Body text excluded from search results by design — agents fetch it explicitly with the matching reliefweb_get_* tool to control context budget
• Oversized records outline rather than truncate, with a section selector to retrieve what's needed
• Curated-profile archives are paged rather than dropped, with honest totals and a next offset
• Recovery hints on empty results — echoes applied filters and suggests how to broaden
• Typed not_found error contracts on get-by-ID tools with actionable recovery text

Getting started

Prerequisites

• Bun v1.3.2 or higher.
• A pre-approved ReliefWeb appname — register at ReliefWeb API and set RELIEFWEB_APP_NAME. The API has required pre-approved appnames since November 2025; requests without one are rejected.

Public Hosted Instance

A public instance is available at https://reliefweb.caseyjhand.com/mcp — no installation required. Point any MCP client at it via Streamable HTTP:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "reliefweb-mcp-server": {
      "type": "streamable-http",
      "url": "https://reliefweb.caseyjhand.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Self-Hosted / Local

Add the following to your MCP client configuration file.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "reliefweb-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "bunx",
      "args": ["@cyanheads/reliefweb-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info",
        "RELIEFWEB_APP_NAME": "your-app-name"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with npx (no Bun required):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "reliefweb-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@cyanheads/reliefweb-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info",
        "RELIEFWEB_APP_NAME": "your-app-name"
      }
    }
  }
}

For Streamable HTTP, set the transport and start the server:

MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=http MCP_HTTP_PORT=3010 RELIEFWEB_APP_NAME=your-app-name bun run start:http
# Server listens at http://localhost:3010/mcp

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/cyanheads/reliefweb-mcp-server.git

2. Navigate into the directory:

cd reliefweb-mcp-server

3. Install dependencies:

bun install

Configuration

All configuration is validated at startup via Zod schemas. Key environment variables:

Variable	Description	Default
RELIEFWEB_APP_NAME	Required. Pre-approved appname for the ReliefWeb API v2. Register at reliefweb.int/help/api.	—
MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE	Transport: stdio or http	stdio
MCP_HTTP_PORT	HTTP server port	3010
MCP_HTTP_ENDPOINT_PATH	HTTP endpoint path where the MCP server is mounted	/mcp
MCP_PUBLIC_URL	Public origin override for TLS-terminating reverse-proxy deployments	none
MCP_AUTH_MODE	Authentication: none, jwt, or oauth	none
MCP_LOG_LEVEL	Log level (debug, info, warning, error, etc.)	info
MCP_GC_PRESSURE_INTERVAL_MS	Opt-in Bun-only forced-GC pressure loop (ms). Try 60000 if heap growth is observed under sustained HTTP load.	0 (disabled)
LOGS_DIR	Directory for log files (Node.js only).	<project-root>/logs
STORAGE_PROVIDER_TYPE	Storage backend: in-memory, filesystem, supabase, cloudflare-kv/r2/d1	in-memory
OTEL_ENABLED	Enable OpenTelemetry	false

Running the server

Local development

• Build and run the production version:

  # One-time build
  bun run rebuild
  
  # Run the built server
  bun run start:http
  # or
  bun run start:stdio
  

• Run checks and tests:

  bun run devcheck  # Lints, formats, type-checks, and more
  bun run test      # Runs the test suite
  

Project structure

Directory	Purpose
src/mcp-server/tools	Tool definitions (*.tool.ts). Eleven tools across reports, disasters, countries, jobs, training, and sources, plus the shared pagination, section-outline, and profile-archive helpers.
src/mcp-server/resources	Resource definitions. Report, disaster, and country resources.
src/mcp-server/prompts	Prompt definitions. Crisis briefing prompt.
src/services/reliefweb	ReliefWeb API service layer — HTTP client, filter builder, and response normalizers for all six content types.
src/config	Server-specific environment variable parsing and validation with Zod.
tests/	Unit and integration tests, mirroring the src/ structure.

Development guide

See CLAUDE.md for development guidelines and architectural rules. The short version:

• Handlers throw, framework catches — no try/catch in tool logic
• Use ctx.log for logging, ctx.state for storage
• Register new tools and resources in the createApp() arrays

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Run checks and tests before submitting:

bun run devcheck
bun run test

License

This project is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. See the LICENSE file for details.