WikiCleanHTML

An MCP server that fetches Wikipedia articles and returns cleaned, readable HTML — stripped of citations, infoboxes, navboxes, edit sections, and other clutter.

Also includes a standalone browser UI (index.html) that works without any server.

Features

• Fetches any Wikipedia article by title, or a random one
• Strips Wikipedia-specific clutter: citations [1], edit sections, infoboxes, navboxes, TOC, metadata
• Sanitizes output HTML with a strict tag/attribute allowlist
• Normalizes relative links to absolute Wikipedia URLs
• Saves cleaned HTML + plain text to local files
• Options to keep/remove images, tables, and links

Quick Start — MCP Server

1. Clone and install

git clone https://github.com/alavna/wikicleanhtml.git
cd wikicleanhtml
python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Register with Claude Code

claude mcp add --scope user wikicleanhtml -- /path/to/wikicleanhtml/.venv/bin/python /path/to/wikicleanhtml/mcp_server.py

Or manually add to your MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "wikicleanhtml": {
      "command": "/path/to/wikicleanhtml/.venv/bin/python",
      "args": ["/path/to/wikicleanhtml/mcp_server.py"]
    }
  }
}

3. Use it

In Claude Code, just say:

"Fetch the Wikipedia article on Insulin"

Claude calls wiki_fetch_article(title="Insulin") and gets back:

{
  "title": "Insulin",
  "source_url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin",
  "html_file": "~/.wikicleanhtml/articles/Insulin.html",
  "text_file": "~/.wikicleanhtml/articles/Insulin.txt",
  "html_length": 45230,
  "text_length": 28100,
  "removed": { "references": 142, "infoboxes": 1, "navboxes": 4, "tables": 3 }
}

The cleaned article is saved locally — Claude can read the file if needed, without loading raw Wikipedia HTML into context.

MCP Tools

Tool	Description
wiki_fetch_article	Fetch a specific article by title
wiki_fetch_random	Fetch a random Wikipedia article

Options (all tools):

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
title	string	required	Wikipedia article title (fetch_article only)
keep_images	bool	false	Preserve <img> tags
keep_tables	bool	false	Preserve <table> elements
keep_links	bool	true	Preserve <a> hyperlinks (text always kept)

Output files are saved to ~/.wikicleanhtml/articles/.

Browser UI

Open index.html directly in any browser. No server needed — it fetches from Wikipedia's CORS-enabled API and cleans client-side with DOMPurify.

What gets removed

Clutter	Selector examples
Citation markers	sup.reference ([1], [2], ...)
Edit sections	.mw-editsection
Hatnotes	.hatnote
Infoboxes	.infobox
Navigation boxes	.navbox
Table of contents	#toc, .toc
Reference lists	.reflist, .references
Message boxes	.ambox, .tmbox, etc.
Category links	#catlinks
Scripts, styles, metadata	script, style, meta, link

What gets preserved

Headings (h1-h4), paragraphs, lists (ul/ol/li), links, emphasis (strong/em), code/pre, blockquote, br/hr.

All output is sanitized through a strict allowlist — no inline styles, event handlers, scripts, iframes, or unknown tags survive.

Tests

cd wikicleanhtml
source .venv/bin/activate
pytest tests/ -v

23 unit tests covering: reference removal, edit section removal, hatnote removal, infobox/navbox removal, TOC removal, image/table toggling, XSS sanitization, link normalization, structure preservation, and plain text extraction.

Wikimedia API Etiquette

This tool follows Wikimedia API guidelines:

• User-Agent: All requests include a descriptive User-Agent header
• Rate: One Wikipedia request per tool call — no bulk fetching
• Caching: Articles are saved to disk; re-read the file instead of re-fetching
• Not intended for high-traffic or production use without Wikimedia approval

Project Structure

wikicleanhtml/
├── mcp_server.py      # MCP server entry point (2 tools)
├── cleaner.py         # HTML cleaning/sanitization logic
├── index.html         # Standalone browser UI
├── requirements.txt   # Python dependencies
├── tests/
│   └── test_cleaner.py
└── README.md

License

MIT