MCP Wayback Machine Server

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server and CLI tool for interacting with the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Supports full CDX search, snapshot content retrieval, screenshot listing, snapshot comparison, and optional authentication for higher SPN2 rate limits.

Installation

As an MCP server

CLI shorthand

Some agent harnesses provide a one-command install:

Claude Code (MCP):

claude mcp add wayback-machine -- npx -y mcp-wayback-machine

Claude Code (plugin marketplace):

/plugin marketplace add https://github.com/Mearman/mcp-wayback-machine.git
/plugin install mcp-wayback-machine@mcp-wayback-machine

OpenAI Codex:

codex mcp add wayback-machine -- npx -y mcp-wayback-machine

To include optional credentials:

claude mcp add wayback-machine --env WAYBACK_ACCESS_KEY=xxx --env WAYBACK_SECRET_KEY=xxx -- npx -y mcp-wayback-machine

codex mcp add wayback-machine --env WAYBACK_ACCESS_KEY=xxx --env WAYBACK_SECRET_KEY=xxx -- npx -y mcp-wayback-machine

Manual configuration

For harnesses that use config files, add the following to the appropriate section:

{
  "wayback-machine": {
    "command": "npx",
    "args": ["-y", "mcp-wayback-machine"],
    "env": {
      "WAYBACK_ACCESS_KEY": "your-access-key",
      "WAYBACK_SECRET_KEY": "your-secret-key"
    }
  }
}

Harness	Config file	Config key
Claude Code	.mcp.json (project) / ~/.claude.json (user)	mcpServers
Codex	~/.codex/config.toml	[mcp_servers.wayback-machine]
Gemini CLI	~/.gemini/settings.json	mcpServers
Crush	.crush.json / ~/.config/crush/crush.json	mcp
Cline	.cline/mcp.json	mcpServers
Cursor	.cursor/mcp.json	mcpServers
Zed	~/.config/zed/settings.json	context_servers
Claude Desktop	~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json	mcpServers

The env block is optional — the server works anonymously without credentials. See Credentials for details.

As a CLI tool

npx mcp-wayback-machine save https://example.com

Or install globally:

npm install -g mcp-wayback-machine
wayback save https://example.com

Quick examples

What to ask the agent:

Archive https://example.com to the Wayback Machine

Find all archived snapshots of https://example.com from 2023

What's the earliest archived version of https://example.com?

Compare the oldest and newest snapshots of https://example.com

Check how many times https://example.com has been archived

Tools

save_url

Archive a URL to the Wayback Machine using the SPN2 API.

Parameters

Parameter	Required	Description
url	Yes	The URL to archive
captureScreenshot	No	Capture a screenshot as a PNG image
captureOutlinks	No	Also archive up to 100 outlinked pages
ifNotArchivedWithin	No	Skip if archived within timeframe, e.g. "30d"
jsBehaviorTimeout	No	Run JavaScript for N seconds before capturing (max 30)
forceGet	No	Use simple HTTP GET instead of browser rendering
delayWbAvailability	No	Delay indexing ~12 hours to reduce server load

get_archived_url

Retrieve an archived snapshot's content and metadata.

Parameters

Parameter	Required	Description
url	Yes	The URL to retrieve
timestamp	No	Specific timestamp (YYYYMMDDhhmmss) or "latest"
modifier	No	URL modifier: id_ (raw), im_ (screenshot), js_ (JS), cs_ (CSS)

search_archives

Search the CDX API for archived versions of a URL.

Parameters

Parameter	Required	Description
url	Yes	The URL pattern to search for
matchType	No	exact, prefix, host, or domain
from	No	Start date (YYYYMMDD or YYYY-MM-DD)
to	No	End date (YYYYMMDD or YYYY-MM-DD)
limit	No	Maximum results (default 10)
offset	No	Skip the first N results
collapse	No	Collapse duplicates, e.g. "timestamp:8" (per hour), "digest"
filter	No	Filter by field regex, e.g. ["statuscode:200", "!mimetype:image.*"]
resolveRevisits	No	Resolve warc/revisit entries to original metadata
showDupeCount	No	Show duplicate count per capture
page	No	Page number for pagination
pageSize	No	Results per page

check_archive_status

Check archival statistics for a URL — capture counts, yearly breakdowns, and first/last capture dates.

Parameters

Parameter	Required	Description
url	Yes	The URL to check

list_screenshots

List available screenshots for a URL.

Parameters

Parameter	Required	Description
url	Yes	The URL to find screenshots for
limit	No	Maximum results (default 10)

compare_snapshots

Compare two archived snapshots of a URL. Fetches the raw content of both and provides a visual diff URL.

Parameters

Parameter	Required	Description
url	Yes	The URL to compare snapshots for
timestampA	No	First timestamp. Defaults to oldest available.
timestampB	No	Second timestamp. Defaults to newest available.

clear_cache

Clear all cached API responses. Use when fresh data is needed or after saving a new URL.

Credentials

The server works anonymously by default. Set Internet Archive S3 credentials for higher rate limits on save operations:

export WAYBACK_ACCESS_KEY="your-access-key"
export WAYBACK_SECRET_KEY="your-secret-key"

To obtain credentials, log in to archive.org and visit your S3 API keys page.

CLI Usage

wayback save https://example.com

wayback get https://example.com

wayback get https://example.com --timestamp 20231225120000

wayback search https://example.com --from 2023-01-01 --to 2023-12-31 --limit 20

wayback status https://example.com

wayback screenshots https://example.com

wayback compare https://example.com

wayback compare https://example.com --timestamp-a 20230101000000 --timestamp-b 20240101000000

Technical Details

• Transport: stdio (MCP client integration)
• Caching: in-memory and disk-based with per-endpoint TTLs:
  • Snapshot content: 24 hours (immutable once captured)
  • Availability, CDX, sparkline: 1 hour (grows but never mutates)
  • Save operations: 30 minutes (idempotent per URL)
  • Save status polling: 30 seconds (changes during active jobs)
• Rate limiting: 15 requests per minute, with automatic Retry-After handling for 429 responses
• Validation: Zod schemas for all inputs and API responses
• Node.js 22+ required

Development

Requires pnpm and Node.js 22+.

pnpm install
pnpm validate     # typecheck + lint + test + build

Resources

• Internet Archive Developer Portal
• CDX Server Documentation
• Save Page Now 2 (SPN2) API
• Bots, LLMs, and Automated Access

Related

• internet-archive-skills — Official Claude Code skill for uploading to, downloading from, and searching the Internet Archive via the ia Python CLI. Complements this project (general IA operations) vs. this server (Wayback Machine MCP protocol).

License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International.