@sylphx/lookout

Lookout

Web answers with source-level proof.

Search and fetch citeable excerpts. No API key. Hits name the adapter. Fetches keep a span, warnings, and gaps. Multi-step research is a separate tool.

npm @sylphx/lookout · bin lookout · MCP io.github.SylphxAI/lookout

The problem

A search snippet is a title and a URL. The agent then paraphrases a page it never opened. When the body is missing, a confident summary is worse than a gap.

The difference

A snippet says	Lookout returns
“Release notes” and a URL	title, description, excerpt span, and any table rows it could read
nothing when the fetch fails	a warning or an error: blocked address, HTTP status, truncation, empty extract

Fetch reads the HTTP response. It does not run JavaScript, and it does not write a model summary.

Search, then open the page

npx -y @sylphx/lookout search "Model Context Protocol"
npx -y @sylphx/lookout fetch https://example.com
npx -y @sylphx/lookout extract https://example.com

search queries DuckDuckGo HTML, Wikipedia OpenSearch, the npm registry, and Hacker News Algolia, then ranks the hits. It does not fetch those pages and it does not run web_research.

Install

npx -y @sylphx/lookout

That starts a stdio MCP server. No API key.

Your client	Setup
Any agent / CLI	npx -y @sylphx/lookout
Claude Code	claude mcp add lookout -- npx -y @sylphx/lookout
Claude Desktop / Cursor / VS Code / Codex	"command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@sylphx/lookout"]

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "lookout": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@sylphx/lookout"] }
  }
}

Tools

Tool	When to call it
web_search	Ranked hits from the four public adapters. No API key.
web_fetch	One URL. SSRF checks, redirect cap, size cap, body-prefix span.
web_extract	Title, metadata, tables, and spans from HTML or a URL.
web_cache	Query or manage the on-disk cache. Not a web search.
web_crawl	Bounded same-origin crawl. Not the search default.
web_research	Named multi-step tool: search, then fetch and extract the top pages (default 3, max 6).
web_diff	Added and removed words between two texts or two URLs.

There is no profile switch. The tool you name is the work that runs. Cache is on for search and fetch unless you pass useCache: false. A cache hit replays an earlier response from disk. The first search still needs the network.

Reference: tools · defaults

What it will not pretend

• Private, loopback, and link-local addresses are rejected.
• A failed adapter, a non-200 response, a truncated body, or an empty extract is reported. It is not turned into a clean answer.
• web_fetch does not honor robots.txt unless you set respectRobots: true. web_crawl honors it unless you turn that off.
• Lookout does not render a browser and does not synthesize an answer.

Companion MCP tools

Product	Job
Citra	PDF answers with page-level proof
Iris	Image facts and pixel evidence
Cue	Video timelines and timestamp evidence
Spine	Repository architecture and impact
Locus	Exact code-chunk retrieval

Each product is independent. Install only the tools your agent needs.

Documentation

Website	sylphxai.github.io/lookout
Quickstart	Install and first call
Compare	Firecrawl, Tavily, and what Lookout actually does

Development

bun install
bun test
bun run doctor
bun run docs:build

License

MIT