MCP Integration Tutorial: Create a News Monitoring App with Claude

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Prerequisites
• Prepare the Kintone Environment
• Prepare the Claude Desktop Mode
• Prepare the Firecrawl MCP Server
• Prepare the Kintone MCP Server
• Send the Prompts
• Make an Announcement
• Conclusion

Introduction

In the rapidly changing world of technology, it’s crucial to stay informed about the latest relevant news. Sharing this information with your team and learning from one another will enhance teamwork across the company.

Using automation for news monitoring and documentation can significantly reduce manual work, particularly with tools like Model Context Protocol (MCP) and Kintone. This article will walk you through how to utilize a content scraping MCP server to extract a recent related article from a news site, summarize it, and automatically create a record in Kintone.

Prerequisites

• VSCode　as the file editor
• Node.js (LTS)

Prepare the Kintone Environment

What is Kintone?

Kintone is a no-code platform for business applications that improves data management and collaboration. 

There is another great blog about the basics of Kintone if you are interested:
👉 Quick Start on Using Kintone Web Database in a Hackathon Project

Get your Kintone Environment

Developers are entitled to use the Kintone Developer License - an environment that can be used for free🤘

Get your Kintone Developer License by filling out the form.
https://kintone.dev/en/developer-license-registration-form/

Create a News Summary App

Refer to the page Creating an App from Scratch and follow the table below to create a simple News summary App.

Once the App is ready, it will look like this👇

To generate the App’s API token, aka API key, follow the steps on the Generating API Tokens page.

⚠️ Make sure to select the checkboxes under Permissions for View records, Add records, and Edit records.

Also, remember your App ID. The number following https://<your domain>.kintone.com/k/ is the App ID.

Prepare the Claude Desktop Mode

To access developer mode, you need the Claude desktop app. Visit here to download the appropriate OS version　and install it.

Next, open your Claude desktop and log in to your claude.ai account. If you don't have an account, sign up with your email.

On your Claude desktop, first go to settings.

In the settings, click the Developer button, and then click the Edit Config button.

This will display the claude_desktop_config.json file.



When you open the file, it is currently empty, but this will serve as our main stage for the development.

Prepare the Firecrawl MCP Server

Your Firecrawl API key is required for content scraping. If you don't have one, create an account at the Firecrawl Site. Once logged in, you will see an API key on your page.

We utilize firecrawl-mcp-server as the server.
Copy the provided Usage with Claude Desktop code into your claude_desktop_config.json file.

⚠️ Ensure that you add your Firecrawl API key.

Now your claude_desktop_config.json file should look like this👇

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-server-firecrawl": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "firecrawl-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY_HERE",

        "FIRECRAWL_RETRY_MAX_ATTEMPTS": "5",
        "FIRECRAWL_RETRY_INITIAL_DELAY": "2000",
        "FIRECRAWL_RETRY_MAX_DELAY": "30000",
        "FIRECRAWL_RETRY_BACKOFF_FACTOR": "3",

        "FIRECRAWL_CREDIT_WARNING_THRESHOLD": "2000",
        "FIRECRAWL_CREDIT_CRITICAL_THRESHOLD": "500"
      }
    }
  }
}

⚠️ After saving the file, it is important to fully exit Claude Desktop mode and restart it to apply the changes.

Reopen your Claude Desktop app.
The Search and tools section of the Claude prompt chat window should indicate that several mcp-server-firecrawl mcp tools have been downloaded and are now ready for use.

Prepare the Kintone MCP Server

Now we perform the same procedure for the Kintone MCP server.

We will use mcp-server-kintone as the server.
Follow the steps in the README and install the latest release.

Next, copy the code from 2. Configure MCP client like Claude Desktop and place it in your claude_desktop_config.json file.

⚠️ Make sure to change all the environment variables to your own values.

Now your claude_desktop_config.json file should look like this👇

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-server-firecrawl": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "firecrawl-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY_HERE",

        "FIRECRAWL_RETRY_MAX_ATTEMPTS": "5",
        "FIRECRAWL_RETRY_INITIAL_DELAY": "2000",
        "FIRECRAWL_RETRY_MAX_DELAY": "30000",
        "FIRECRAWL_RETRY_BACKOFF_FACTOR": "3",

        "FIRECRAWL_CREDIT_WARNING_THRESHOLD": "2000",
        "FIRECRAWL_CREDIT_CRITICAL_THRESHOLD": "500"
      }
    },
    "kintone": {
      "command": "<your/path/to/mcp-server-kintone.exe>",
      "env": {
        "KINTONE_BASE_URL": "https://<your domain>.kintone.com",
        "KINTONE_USERNAME": "<your username>",
        "KINTONE_PASSWORD": "<your password>",
        "KINTONE_API_TOKEN": "<your api token>",
        "KINTONE_ALLOW_APPS": "<your App number>",
        "KINTONE_DENY_APPS": ""
      }
    }
  }
}

⚠️ Again, completely exit Claude Desktop mode and restart it to apply the changes.

When you reopen, your Search and tools section will look like this and will be ready for use👇

Send the Prompts

This is the main part. Ask Claude to handle the process.
Go back to your Claude desktop and start sending the prompts.

Send the first prompt like this.

Use firecrawl to find a recent major news article about “Kintone” on techcrunch.com and provide a summary in an easy-to-read format. Be sure to include the link to the article summary.

After sending the prompt, a pop-up window will appear👇

Claude determines which of the installed MCP servers should be used and requests permissions for that server. You can then simply grant those permissions by pressing the allow button. The process will begin using the MCP server.

🤫 MCP typically employs various methods for web searching, which can quickly reach your daily free account limit. As a result, a paid account is necessary for improved performance, although it is still possible to perform some searches with a free account.
If you’re feeling budget-conscious, you can forcibly stop the searching process by pressing the stop button after attempting a few searches.

Next, instruct Claude to register the search result in Kintone using the following prompt.

So the second prompt is like this.

Add the summary report in a format that can be viewed within the "News summary" App on "https://your-domain.kintone.com".

After this prompt, Claude will ask you again if it can access the Kintone MCP server in the same way it did when inquiring about Firecrawl's server. Grant the permissions once more to proceed.

Once the permissions are approved, Claude will locate the Kintone App and check the fields where the data needs to be entered.

Claude will create a record based on the prompt. If it succeeds, Claude will return the following.

The record has been successfully created with ID #1 in the News Summary App.

If you check your Kintone App, you will see a new record of a news summary like this🎉

Make an Announcement

Here’s a further implementation of a simple trick for announcing the news summary and updating everyone on your Kintone Portal.
Attaching Apps to the Announcement Section or Threads of a Space

Not gonna lie. This is really easy, too!

Conclusion

This applies in many ways to sharing your essential information within your CRM, ensuring everyone stays up-to-date.
Sharing is caring🤝

If you have questions or want to share your thoughts, we’re here for you!
Visit Kintone Developer Forum
Your input is always welcome.