Opedd — Licensed Content for AI

opedd-mcp

Licensed, rights-cleared content for AI agents — the alternative to unlicensed scraping for RAG, AI search, and LLM grounding.

Lets AI assistants (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, or any MCP-compatible host) discover, purchase, and verify content licenses autonomously — mid-conversation, without opening a browser. Every license is recorded in a public registry on Tempo, with cryptographic proof.

Unlike generic search APIs, Opedd returns content with a verifiable license key — with the rights cleared and a record you can show your legal team.

Quick start

npx opedd-mcp

Then add it to your MCP host (see Claude Desktop / Cursor / Windsurf setup below). Discovery + verification tools work with no configuration; purchasing and content retrieval use optional API keys from opedd.com.

Hosted endpoint — no install (mcp.opedd.com)

Prefer zero-install? The same 20 tools are served hosted at https://mcp.opedd.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP). Auth is an Authorization: Bearer header with any Opedd key — public discovery tools need no auth at all.

Claude Messages API (production agents):

{
  "mcp_servers": [{
    "type": "url",
    "url": "https://mcp.opedd.com/mcp",
    "name": "opedd",
    "authorization_token": "opedd_buyer_live_..."
  }]
}

OpenAI Responses API:

{
  "tools": [{
    "type": "mcp",
    "server_label": "opedd",
    "server_url": "https://mcp.opedd.com/mcp",
    "authorization": "opedd_buyer_live_..."
  }]
}

claude.ai / Claude Desktop custom connector (all plans): Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → URL https://mcp.opedd.com/mcp; add a Authorization: Bearer <your key> request header for the credentialed tools.

Cursor (.cursor/mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "opedd": {
      "url": "https://mcp.opedd.com/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ${env:OPEDD_KEY}" }
    }
  }
}

Key routing: opedd_sk_* (legacy opedd_pub_*) → publisher tools · opedd_buyer_* → content retrieval · ent_* → bulk feeds · buyer-portal JWT → audit/compliance tools. Your key is forwarded per request and never stored by the gateway.

What it does

Exposes up to 20 tools to any AI assistant (some are conditional on env vars):

Every tool carries a title and MCP annotations (readOnlyHint, destructiveHint, idempotentHint, openWorldHint) so an assistant can tell which tools only read and which spend money or write (v0.12.0).

Always available — discovery + onboarding + rights signaling

Tool	Description
search_content	Free discovery. Full-text search across everything licensable (v0.8.0) — ranked matches with publisher, prices, word count and a description snippet; quotes for phrases, -word to exclude. Returns no article text — use search_passages to actually read
search_passages	Paid per answer, or included in a monthly subscription. Ask a question, get licensed passages that answer it, with citations. Pay per answer: charged once per article the answer uses, at that publication's own price per article, each passage capped at 300 words or 25% of the article, counted cumulatively. Monthly AI answers subscriptions (v0.12.0): included, not capped, from the subscription's start. Narrow with publishers, published_after, published_before, max_results (1–10, default 5) and cap a question's cost with max_charge_cents. Needs a buyer key with the search scope. Re-asking within 24h is free
lookup_content	Look up an article by URL — returns title, publisher and how to license it, or that it is not on Opedd yet
request_publication	Ask to be told when a publication Opedd does not carry yet becomes available (url + email; no key)
verify_license	Verify a license key — returns validity, article, publisher, public-record proof
browse_registry	Browse the public Opedd registry — lists issued LICENSES (use publisher_directory to browse publishers themselves)
publisher_directory	Browse the public Opedd publisher catalog — paginated publishers with article counts + pricing + sample articles (primary buyer-discovery surface for AI labs)
place_licence_order	Place a licence order for one or more publishers: AI answers (monthly full text, or metered pay-per-request snippets ≤300 words / 25%), Full catalogue (archive, one_time: everything published up to the order date, kept permanently, no AI training), AI training (one_time, back catalogue), client display (monthly × end clients). Optional include_archive: true on a monthly AI answers order adds each publisher's Full catalogue for complete access. Each publisher is its own Schedule at its own price; returns the order, lines, unavailable publishers and hosted_invoice_url. Needs OPEDD_BUYER_JWT and terms_accepted: true
rsl_get	Fetch a publisher's RSL Standard manifest — public discovery surface; jsonld: true returns CDSM Article 4(3) signed receipt (Phase 12 W1.1)
detect_platform	Detect the content platform behind a URL — returns suggested onboarding workflow for Substack / Beehiiv / Ghost / Medium / Brevo / custom (Phase 12 W3.1)

Requires OPEDD_BUYER_TOKEN (opedd_buyer_live_*) — one key covers search, articles and the feed (v0.12.0)

Tool	Description
get_content	Retrieve a licensed article under any order your account holds — full text for AI answers monthly and client display orders; pay-per-request licences read through search_passages (403 SEARCH_ONLY_LICENCE); includes 7 RAG metadata fields (author, language, word_count, content_hash, image_urls, canonical_url, tags)

Feed tools — OPEDD_BUYER_TOKEN + order_id, or an order's OPEDD_ACCESS_KEY (ent_*)

Tool	Description
list_feed	List the articles a licence order covers, with since delta-feed support. AI training and Full catalogue orders carry full content_body (content_access: "included"); monthly orders are discovery-only (content_access: "retrieval_per_article", fetch text via get_content); per-request orders are "search_only". With a buyer key, pass order_id (optional when the account holds one active order)
stream_feed_ndjson	Bulk-export up to 1000 articles per call via NDJSON wire format. Same content contract and credentials as list_feed

Requires OPEDD_BUYER_JWT (Supabase JWT) — buyer account + audit + compliance + attestation surfaces

Tool	Description
get_buyer_account	Fetch buyer profile + masked API key list — buyer-dashboard mental model
list_licence_orders	The buyer's licence orders and lines; with order_id, each line's Schedule document and its SHA-256 (the fingerprint recorded on Tempo). Also works with an audit-scoped OPEDD_BUYER_TOKEN
get_audit_events	Per-event audit ledger with public-record (Tempo) inclusion proofs inline (Phase 9.x + 10 M5)
get_compliance_dossier	Procurement-defense compliance dossier mapping retrievals to license terms (Phase 11 M4)
article_53_attestation	Signed compliance attestation (JWT) for a license — the artifact a buyer hands to legal/procurement (Phase 12 W1.4)

Requires OPEDD_PUB_BEARER (opedd_sk_; legacy opedd_pub_ still works) — publisher-side

Tool	Description
list_publisher_content	List your own articles with pricing and stats
push_content	Push your articles to Opedd so AI buyers can license them — 1–100 per call (title/url/html_body required, everything else optional). Onboard your back-catalogue or new posts with no code, straight from your AI assistant.

Compliance artifacts (publisher-side vs buyer-side — never conflated)

Per Opedd's platform invariants (W1.6 amendment):

• rsl_get(publisher_id, jsonld=true) → publisher-side CDSM Article 4(3) opt-out declaration (signed JSON-LD receipt over the reservation state).
• article_53_attestation(license_id) → buyer-side signed compliance attestation (HS256 JWT scoped to one license).
• get_compliance_dossier(from, to) → comprehensive procurement-defense dossier covering BOTH sides (publisher CDSM reservation honored + buyer attestation evidence chain).

These serve different audit-defensibility modes and never share wire format. Tool descriptions cite the W1.6 invariant inline.

Install

npm install -g opedd-mcp

Or run directly with npx:

npx opedd-mcp

Configuration

Set environment variables to pre-configure the server:

Variable	Required	Description
OPEDD_BUYER_TOKEN	Optional	Buyer API key (opedd_buyer_live_*; opedd_buyer_test_* for sandbox) — enables search_passages (with the search scope), get_content, list_feed + stream_feed_ndjson (with order_id)
OPEDD_ACCESS_KEY	Optional	An order's enterprise access key (ent_*) — alternative credential for list_feed + stream_feed_ndjson
OPEDD_BUYER_JWT	Optional	Supabase session JWT from the buyer portal — enables place_licence_order + list_licence_orders + get_buyer_account + get_audit_events + get_compliance_dossier + article_53_attestation
OPEDD_PUB_BEARER	Optional	Publisher API key (opedd_sk_<32-hex>, canonical since 2026-08-27; older opedd_pub_<32-hex> keys keep working) — from the Opedd dashboard, Settings → Developers. Enables list_publisher_content (+ include_body) and push_content.
OPEDD_API_KEY	Deprecated	Legacy Publisher API key (op_...) — fallback during the transition window; will stop working when opedd-backend Phase C deploys. Migrate to OPEDD_PUB_BEARER.
OPEDD_API_URL	Optional	Override the API base URL (default: Opedd production)
OPEDD_MCP_TELEMETRY	Optional	Set to 0 to disable anonymous usage telemetry (see below)

Getting a Stripe payment method ID: Save a card in your Stripe account and retrieve the pm_... ID via the Stripe API.

Anonymous usage telemetry

To understand how AI assistants use this server, opedd-mcp sends anonymous telemetry for each tool call: only the tool name, its duration, whether it succeeded, and the server version — plus a random per-process id. It never sends tool parameters, responses, your email, API keys, tokens, content, or your IP. Data goes to Opedd's PostHog (EU region).

To opt out, set either environment variable before starting the server:

OPEDD_MCP_TELEMETRY=0
# or the cross-tool standard:
DO_NOT_TRACK=1

When opted out, no telemetry client is created and nothing is sent.

Claude Desktop setup

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "opedd": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["opedd-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "OPEDD_BUYER_TOKEN": "opedd_buyer_live_..."
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor / Windsurf setup

Add to your MCP settings:

{
  "opedd": {
    "command": "npx opedd-mcp",
    "env": {
      "OPEDD_BUYER_TOKEN": "opedd_buyer_live_..."
    }
  }
}

Example usage

Once configured, you can ask your AI assistant:

"Look up the licensing options for this article: https://theinformation.com/articles/..."

"What do Opedd's publications say about EU chip subsidies? Cite the passages." — uses search_passages

"Verify license key OP-XXXX-XXXX and tell me what it covers."

"Browse the latest licenses from The Information publisher."

Phase 12 Wave 1 + 3 surfaces (v0.3.0)

"What does publisher 8268c353-ffa3-4db3-bbb2-90ddbbb43e41 license? Pull the RSL manifest." — uses rsl_get

"Get me a CDSM Article 4(3) signed receipt for that publisher's reservation state — set jsonld: true." — uses rsl_get with content negotiation

"Generate a signed compliance attestation for our license 11111111-... covering the last 90 days. I need the artifact for our procurement audit committee." — uses article_53_attestation (requires OPEDD_BUYER_JWT)

"This publisher just signed up: https://noahpinion.substack.com. Which onboarding workflow should we use?" — uses detect_platform

"Browse the finance category in the Opedd catalog — show me publishers with at least 50 articles." — uses publisher_directory

"What's in my buyer account? Show me my active API keys." — uses get_buyer_account (requires OPEDD_BUYER_JWT)

The assistant will call the appropriate Opedd tools and show you the results.

Payment

No account? An agent can pay for one answer on the spot. POST https://api.opedd.com/agent-answer with the same body as search_passages ({"query": "..."}). The response is HTTP 402 with the price (each article the answer uses, at its publication's own price), the licence and the buyer terms. Pay by card through the Machine Payments Protocol (a Stripe shared payment token, at least 0.50 USD; the rest stays as credit on a search key returned with the answer) and retry. Machine-readable: api.opedd.com/openapi.json.

Pay-per-answer search is billed to the card on your buyer account (opedd.com/buyer/billing); licence orders are paid through Stripe. Single-article purchases (Human republication, purchase_license) were retired on 2026-10-26.

Development

git clone https://github.com/Opedd/opedd-mcp
cd opedd-mcp
npm install
npm run dev   # runs with tsx (no build step)
npm run build # compiles to dist/

How Opedd compares to search APIs

	Opedd	Generic search APIs
What you get	Licensed content + license key + public-record proof — all in one API call	Scraped web content, no rights
Content delivery	Full article text via API (JSON) — bulk on flat-fee licenses, per-call (metered) on filtered licenses; real-time feed via webhooks	Scraped snippets or full-page dumps
Content quality	Curated publisher content (niche B2B newsletters, expert analysis)	Whatever's on the open web
Rights	Verifiable licence for every use, publisher-authorized	No rights clearance
Proof	Public record (Tempo) — independently verifiable	None
Compliance	Signed attestation + full provenance chain	No provenance
Pricing	Publisher sets their own prices	Platform decides
Delivery modes	Article API, bulk feed (JSON firehose), buyer webhooks (push)	Query-response only
Protocol	REST + MCP native	REST only

Opedd is the licensed content delivery layer for AI — not just a licensing wrapper. Publishers upload content, you retrieve it via API with a license attached. One integration gives your pipeline both the content and the legal right to use it.

Learn more

• Opedd for AI Agents — full documentation, code examples, endpoint reference
• API Docs — OpenAPI spec with agent endpoints
• Verify a licence — check any licence key in the public record

License

MIT