Build an n8n AI agent that knows today's news (MCP or plain HTTP)

A step-by-step guide published on NestDaddy's site shows how to give n8n's AI Agent node access to current news through two methods: connecting an MCP server at https://mcp.nestdaddy.com/mcp via the MCP Client Tool node with HTTP Streamable transport and Bearer Auth, or calling the NestDaddy news API (https://nestdaddy.com/api/v1/news/search) from an HTTP Request node in a scheduled workflow. The guide uses NestDaddy, an independent search engine with its own web index and news collection, and notes a free 7-day key with 5,000 calls and no card requirement is enough to build and test both setups. The MCP approach lets the agent choose which tools to call — including news_search, country_news and read_page — while the pipeline approach runs a daily 07:00 Schedule Trigger, queries with parameters such as q=OpenAI, days=1, limit=15 and country=GB, then has an LLM summarize results into Slack, Telegram or email.

Build an n8n AI agent that knows today's news MCP or plain HTTP n8n's AI Agent only knows what its model learned in training. Two ways to fix it: connect an MCP server so the agent searches the web and news by itself, or call a news API from an HTTP Request node in a scheduled workflow. Step by step, no code. n8n's AI Agent node is great at reasoning over what you give it. Ask it about something that happened this morning, though, and it can only guess: the model behind it stopped learning months ago. This guide shows two ways to give an n8n workflow live news and web search: 1. Agent mode: connect an MCP server to the AI Agent node. The agent decides when to search the news, search the web or read an article in full. Best for chat-style workflows and research tasks. 2. Pipeline mode: a scheduled workflow calls a news API with the HTTP Request node, then an LLM summarises the results and sends them to Slack, Telegram or email. Best for daily briefs and keyword alerts. Both use the same API key. The examples use NestDaddy https://nestdaddy.com/mcp , an independent search engine with its own web index and news collection. A free 7-day key 5,000 calls, no card is enough to build and test both. Option 1: AI Agent + MCP Client Tool What you build php Chat Trigger - AI Agent model: any chat model you use in n8n |-- MCP Client Tool - NestDaddy news, web search, read page... Steps 1. Add a Chat Trigger node or any trigger that passes a question . 2. Add an AI Agent node and connect your chat model OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Ollama or any model you already use in n8n . 3. On the agent's Tool input, add an MCP Client Tool node: - Endpoint: https://mcp.nestdaddy.com/mcp - Server Transport: HTTP Streamable - Authentication: Bearer Auth, with a credential that holds your key or Header Auth with Authorization: Bearer YOUR KEY 4. Leave "Tools to include" on all tools, or pick the ones you need for a news assistant: news search , country news , read page . 5. In the agent's system message, tell it when to use the tools: You answer questions about current events. Always use news search for anything that may have happened recently, and read page to read the one or two most relevant articles in full before answering. Mention the date of each fact and list the article URLs you used. Open the chat and ask something like "What changed in EU AI rules this week?" . In the execution log you will see the agent call news search , then read page , then answer with sources. Why MCP instead of hard-coded HTTP calls - The agent chooses which tool to call and what to search for, based on the question. - One node gives the agent several tools: news by key words, country news, web search, page reading and research papers. - The same server works in Claude, Cursor and VS Code, so you test prompts once and reuse them everywhere Claude setup https://nestdaddy.com/blog/add-live-web-search-to-claude-mcp , Cursor setup https://nestdaddy.com/blog/cursor-web-search-mcp . Option 2: scheduled news brief with HTTP Request What you build php Schedule Trigger every morning - HTTP Request news search for your topics - AI Agent / LLM summarise into a short brief - Slack / Telegram / Send Email Steps 1. Schedule Trigger: every day at 07:00 in your time zone. 2. HTTP Request node: - Method: GET - URL: https://nestdaddy.com/api/v1/news/search - Authentication: Generic Credential Type → Header Auth, with header name X-API-Key and your key as the value - Query parameters: | Name | Value | Notes | |---|---|---| | q | OpenAI | Your topic, as key words | | days | 1 | Only the last day | | limit | 15 | Enough for a brief | | country | GB | Optional: only news from one country two-letter code | The response has a results list; each item has title , url , source domain , published timestamp and description . 3. AI Agent or a plain LLM node with a prompt like: Here are today's news results as JSON: {{ JSON.stringify $json.results }} Write a brief for a busy reader: at most 6 bullet points, each one sentence, merge duplicates of the same story, and end each bullet with the source link. 1. Slack , Telegram or Send Email node: send the agent's output. Several topics? Put a small list in a Code node before the HTTP Request one item per topic ; n8n runs the request once per item, and a Merge or Aggregate node collects them again before the summary. Keyword alerts instead of a daily brief Change the schedule to every 30 or 60 minutes, set days to 1 , and add an IF node that only continues when results is not empty. To avoid sending the same story twice, keep the URLs you already sent n8n's workflow static data in a Code node, or a small table in your database and filter them out. Which option should you use? | You want | Use | |---|---| | A chat assistant that answers questions about current events | Option 1 MCP | | A research step inside a bigger agent workflow | Option 1 MCP | | A fixed daily or hourly brief | Option 2 HTTP Request | | Alerts when a company, product or person appears in the news | Option 2 with an IF node | Many workflows use both: a scheduled brief for the team, and an agent for follow-up questions. Costs and limits Every MCP tool call or HTTP request counts as one call; connecting the MCP server and listing tools is free. A daily brief over three topics uses about 90 calls a month, and an agent that reads two articles per question uses three or four calls per question. Plans start at $9.99 a month for 10,000 calls after the free 7-day trial: get a key https://nestdaddy.com/apis . Prefer code over nodes? The same daily brief in Python, with dedupe and Telegram, Slack or email delivery: Build a daily news digest bot in Python https://nestdaddy.com/blog/news-digest-bot-python .