upriver — Claude Code MCP server: trending topics with citations
A hosted MCP server from Upriver that hands your assistant breakout topics gaining traction online, each backed by source citations.
claude mcp add --transport http upriver https://mcp.upriver.ai/mcpWhat upriver does
Upriver runs remotely. You point your client at https://mcp.upriver.ai/mcp over Streamable HTTP and there is nothing to install or keep running locally. One slice of the Upriver API is exposed so far: breakout topics, meaning subjects picking up speed across tech, sports and politics. Every topic arrives with citations drawn from news, reddit and twitter, so the model argues from sources rather than guessing.
Two read-only tools. breakout_search_topics takes a keyword, breakout_list_topics browses what is rising right now and can filter by lifecycle status. Both cap results at limit topics — 10 unless you say otherwise, 25 at most — and each topic carries up to 5 citations plus a has_more flag when the page is not the last.
Access is provisioned per account; request it at dashboard.upriver.ai. Sign-in goes through Upriver with OAuth, or you pass a key in the X-API-Key header. The connector UIs for Claude and ChatGPT accept OAuth only, so a key will not work there. JetBrains IDEs are out for now: they strip custom request headers and lack OAuth for remote servers, which leaves X-API-Key with nothing to attach to.
What it helps with
- see which topics are gaining traction right now
- search breakout topics by keyword
- narrow trends to tech, sports or politics
- pull citations from news, reddit and twitter for each topic
- filter out topics that are already declining
Example prompts for the agent
- Search breakout topics for "AI video effects" and list the sources
- What's gaining traction in tech right now? Give me up to 10 topics with citations
- Show me only declining topics in sports
How to install upriver
Platform CLI: remote server
claude mcp add --transport http upriver https://mcp.upriver.ai/mcpPlatform CLI: remote server
codex mcp add upriver --url https://mcp.upriver.ai/mcpConfig file
{
"mcpServers": {
"upriver": {
"url": "https://mcp.upriver.ai/mcp"
}
}
}Config file
{
"servers": {
"upriver": {
"type": "http",
"url": "https://mcp.upriver.ai/mcp"
}
}
}Platform CLI: remote server
gemini mcp add -t http upriver https://mcp.upriver.ai/mcpStep by step, with commands for each platform: How to add an MCP server to Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, Gemini CLI and more
Questions about upriver
How do I install upriver in Claude Code?
Run claude mcp add --transport http upriver https://mcp.upriver.ai/mcp. To authenticate with a key instead, add --header "X-API-Key: YOUR_UPRIVER_API_KEY".
What does upriver do?
It feeds your assistant breakout topics gaining traction online, with citations from news, reddit and twitter. Only those tools exist today; the rest of the Upriver API is promised as later MCP tools.
Do I need an API key for upriver?
You can sign in with Upriver through OAuth, or send a key in the X-API-Key header. Claude, Cursor, VS Code, Cline, Windsurf, Codex CLI, Goose and Zed take the header; the Claude and ChatGPT connectors do not.
