Yahoo Shopping MCP Server

Yahoo! Shopping MCP

An open-source, community-maintained MCP server for the Yahoo! Shopping Item Search API v3. It provides read-only product search through Streamable HTTP and can be run locally or self-hosted with Docker.

This is not an official Yahoo! Shopping, LINE Yahoo, or OpenAI service. The maintainers do not represent, endorse, operate, or guarantee Yahoo! Shopping, the Yahoo! Developer Network, or OpenAI.

Project status and hosted endpoints

This project is intended for self-hosting. It does not provide a guaranteed shared or production-hosted endpoint.

If a Cloudflare Tunnel URL is shared separately by a maintainer for testing, that URL is a temporary verification endpoint. It may be stopped, restarted, changed, or unavailable at any time; it has no uptime, SLA, support, privacy, or data-retention guarantee. Do not use it for production or confidential workloads. Run this server on infrastructure you control instead.

A maintainer-operated sample deployment may be available at:

• MCP endpoint: https://non-official-yahoo-shopping-mcp.notelligent.app/mcp
• Health check: https://non-official-yahoo-shopping-mcp.notelligent.app/healthz
• Root health check: https://non-official-yahoo-shopping-mcp.notelligent.app/

These URLs are provided for demonstration and connectivity checks only. They are not an official Yahoo! or OpenAI service and are not guaranteed to be online, stable, supported, private, or available to any particular user.

The current registry and directory publication status is tracked in docs/PUBLICATION.md.

This is a community implementation. Before using it, independently review the current Yahoo! Developer Network and Yahoo! Shopping API terms, quotas, attribution requirements, content restrictions, and any rules applicable to your jurisdiction and deployment. The maintainers do not guarantee that the implementation or its usage complies with a third-party policy.

Demo

The short demo below shows a Yahoo! Shopping search from ChatGPT and the resulting MCP Apps product carousel.

The GIF is used for inline playback because GitHub does not reliably embed repository-local MP4 files in rendered Markdown. The higher-quality MP4 is available at assets/demo.mp4.

Features

• Read-only search_products tool for Yahoo! Shopping product search
• Keyword, JAN code, price, stock, condition, shipping, sorting, category, brand, seller, image-size, and pagination filters
• A same-process interval between Yahoo request starts (1 second by default)
• Exponential backoff for Yahoo HTTP 429 responses and a bounded 5xx retry
• Short-lived cache of safety-filtered Yahoo response data
• SQLite-backed application-wide rate limiting
• MCP Apps product carousel with Yahoo attribution
• Conservative filtering of restricted product terms and non-Yahoo URLs
• GET /, GET /healthz, and Streamable HTTP MCP at /mcp

The rate limiter is an application safeguard, not a Yahoo quota guarantee or an SLA. It applies within one process; separate replicas need their own controls.

Protocol and endpoints

The server uses the MCP Streamable HTTP transport:

• MCP endpoint: /mcp
• Health endpoint: GET /healthz
• Root health endpoint: GET /
• MCP authentication: none

The server is bound to loopback by default. An unauthenticated endpoint is not automatically an internet-public endpoint; if you expose it, add network, reverse-proxy, rate-limit, logging, and data-retention controls appropriate to your deployment.

Local plugin package

The repository includes metadata for local use:

• .codex-plugin/plugin.json: local plugin metadata, prompts, and logo
• .mcp.json: local MCP client configuration
• assets/logo.svg: product-search icon

These files do not provide a store listing or a shared hosted service. Start your own server and configure your own Yahoo Client ID before using them.

Quick start

Requirements: Python 3.12+, uv, and a Yahoo! Shopping API appid obtained by the operator.

make sync-dev
YAHOO_SHOPPING_APP_ID="your-app-id" make run

The local MCP endpoint is http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp and the health check is http://127.0.0.1:8000/healthz.

To bind a different interface or port for a controlled deployment:

YAHOO_SHOPPING_APP_ID="your-app-id" make run HOST=0.0.0.0 PORT=8080

Keep the Yahoo Client ID in an environment variable. Never commit it or place it in a search query.

Docker and self-hosting

Create the local environment template and start the container:

make init-env
make up

The default local Compose endpoint is http://127.0.0.1:18000/mcp. See Deployment for a production-oriented container and reverse-proxy checklist.

To run the container directly without Compose, build the image and publish the container's port to loopback:

docker build --tag yahoo-shopping-mcp:local .
docker run --rm \
  --name yahoo-shopping-mcp \
  --publish 127.0.0.1:18000:8000 \
  --env YAHOO_SHOPPING_APP_ID="your-app-id" \
  --volume yahoo-shopping-mcp-data:/data \
  yahoo-shopping-mcp:local

The MCP endpoint is http://127.0.0.1:18000/mcp and the health check is http://127.0.0.1:18000/healthz. To use a published versioned preview image, replace the local build with a specific tag from GitHub Container Registry:

CONTAINER_IMAGE="ghcr.io/ymuichiro/yahoo-shopping-mcp:v0.9.0-preview.2"
docker pull "$CONTAINER_IMAGE"
docker run --rm \
  --name yahoo-shopping-mcp \
  --publish 127.0.0.1:18000:8000 \
  --env YAHOO_SHOPPING_APP_ID="your-app-id" \
  --volume yahoo-shopping-mcp-data:/data \
  "$CONTAINER_IMAGE"

For direct application startup, use the YAHOO_SHOPPING_MCP_* environment variables. Compose maps its convenience variables ALLOWED_HOSTS and ALLOWED_ORIGINS to the application settings.

Optional Cloudflare Tunnel

Cloudflare Tunnel is an optional developer deployment path, not a requirement. It is only enabled by:

make up-tunnel

Set CLOUDFLARE_TUNNEL_TOKEN only when using that Compose profile. The tunnel hostname and published application are configured in Cloudflare, outside this repository. Replace the local values in .env with the exact external hostname and origin used by your deployment:

YAHOO_SHOPPING_APP_ID=replace-with-your-yahoo-app-id
CLOUDFLARE_TUNNEL_TOKEN=replace-with-your-cloudflare-tunnel-token
ALLOWED_HOSTS=mcp.example.com
ALLOWED_ORIGINS=https://mcp.example.com

The tunnel does not add MCP authentication. Do not treat a tunnel URL shared by the maintainer as a supported hosted service; use a hostname and infrastructure that you control.

Claude Desktop

This server currently provides Streamable HTTP only. Claude Desktop's claude_desktop_config.json starts local stdio servers, so adding this repository as a command entry will not work; this repository does not ship a stdio bridge.

To connect a self-hosted, authenticated deployment, open Claude Desktop's Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector and enter the complete HTTPS MCP URL, including /mcp:

https://mcp.example.com/mcp

Complete the authentication flow provided by that deployment. The current maintainer demo endpoint is unauthenticated and temporary, so do not use it as a production Claude connector. Keep YAHOO_SHOPPING_APP_ID on the MCP server and never place it in Claude Desktop configuration.

For local development, start the server and verify the endpoint with MCP Inspector:

YAHOO_SHOPPING_APP_ID="your-app-id" make run

The endpoint is http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp. Direct local Claude Desktop integration would require a separate stdio adapter, which is not included in this project. See the MCP documentation for local servers and remote servers.

Using the tool

Use the endpoint you started from ChatGPT Developer Mode or another MCP client. No MCP authentication header is expected.

search_products requires at least one of query and jan_code. Important constraints include:

• query: 1–200 characters
• jan_code: an 8–13 digit string
• genre_category_ids and brand_ids: arrays of 1–20 positive integers
• results: 1–50
• start: 1 or greater
• start + results <= 1000
• price_from <= price_to when both are supplied

See the complete contract in docs/API.md.

Example:

{
  "query": "desk lamp",
  "in_stock": true,
  "sort": "-score",
  "results": 10,
  "start": 1
}

The tool returns model-readable JSON in content[0].text, with product data under results. Carousel data is returned in structuredContent.products. The UI Resource is versioned as ui://yahoo-shopping/product-carousel-v4.html and displays Yahoo attribution.

The server does not place orders, process payments, modify accounts, or guarantee product availability, prices, sellers, shipping, or legal compliance.

Privacy and safety

Search fields are sent to the operator's MCP server and to Yahoo! Shopping. The server stores only safety-filtered Yahoo response data in a short-lived cache and global rate-limit state in local storage. It does not provide user accounts or persist full chat history.

Do not send secrets, payment data, passwords, government identifiers, or sensitive personal data as search terms. Public operators must publish privacy, support, and retention details that match their actual infrastructure.

The safety filter is conservative and does not guarantee complete product classification. It is not a substitute for Yahoo's policies, legal advice, or operator review.

See PRIVACY.md, TERMS.md, SECURITY.md, and docs/DATA_HANDLING.md.

Yahoo! Developer Network references

The following official pages define the external requirements that apply to the operator's own Yahoo! application. They are not part of this repository's license or a substitute for reading the current versions:

• Yahoo! Developer Network guidelines
• Yahoo! Shopping API portal
• Yahoo! Shopping product search v3
• Credit and attribution rules
• Usage limits
• Developer guide and Client ID registration

Each operator must obtain and protect their own Client ID and independently confirm the applicable terms, usage limits, attribution, and legal requirements before operating this server.

Development and verification

make test

Tests use httpx.MockTransport and do not call Yahoo! from CI. For MCP Inspector and UI checks, see docs/VERIFICATION.md. Reviewable positive and negative cases are in docs/SUBMISSION_TEST_CASES.md.

Contributions are welcome. Read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a change. For support, use SUPPORT.md; report security issues using the private process in SECURITY.md.

Japanese documentation

日本語の概要・導入手順は docs/README.ja.md を参照してください。

License

MIT