lore-kernel-mcp

A lightweight MCP server for reading lore.kernel.org Linux kernel mailing list threads.

Instead of scraping Anubis-protected HTML pages, it downloads public-inbox thread mbox archives directly — fast, reliable, and cacheable.

https://lore.kernel.org/<list>/<message-id>/t.mbox.gz

What it does

Give your AI assistant the ability to read and analyze Linux kernel mailing list discussions — patch series, review threads, bug reports, and any lore-hosted conversation.

The server parses mbox files and extracts structured data: message headers, participants, subjects, diff file lists, trailers (Signed-off-by, Reviewed-by, etc.), and full plain-text bodies.

Tools

Tool	Description
lore_fetch_thread	Download and cache a thread mbox
lore_summarize_thread	Summarize messages, participants, subjects, trailers, and patched files
lore_extract_message	Return one message's headers and full plain-text body

All tools accept a full lore URL or a bare message-id as ref.

Install

pip (recommended)

pip install lore-kernel-mcp

From source

git clone https://github.com/soolaugust/lore-kernel-mcp.git
cd lore-kernel-mcp
pip install .

Configure

Claude Code

Add to ~/.claude/.mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "lore-kernel-mcp": {
      "command": "lore-kernel-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Or use the Python path directly (no pip install needed):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "lore-kernel-mcp": {
      "command": "python3",
      "args": ["-m", "lore_kernel_mcp.server"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop

Add to your Claude Desktop config (claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "lore-kernel-mcp": {
      "command": "lore-kernel-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude after changing MCP config.

Usage

Once configured, just ask your AI assistant:

Summarize this lore thread:
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20260504020003.71306-1-qyousef@layalina.io/

Or with a bare message-id:

Use lore-kernel-mcp to fetch 20260504020003.71306-1-qyousef@layalina.io from lkml

Configuration

All settings are optional, via environment variables:

Variable	Default	Description
LORE_LITE_CACHE_DIR	~/.cache/lore-lite-mcp	Cache directory for downloaded mbox files
LORE_LITE_MAX_COMPRESSED_BYTES	52428800 (50 MB)	Max compressed download size
LORE_LITE_MAX_DECOMPRESSED_BYTES	209715200 (200 MB)	Max decompressed mbox size
LORE_LITE_MAX_MESSAGES	500	Max messages per thread

How it works

1. Parses the lore URL or message-id to extract the mailing list name and message-id
2. Downloads the gzip-compressed mbox from the public-inbox t.mbox.gz endpoint
3. Streams and decompresses with size limits (no unbounded downloads)
4. Caches the mbox locally — subsequent reads are instant
5. Parses with Python's mailbox module and returns structured JSON

Requirements

• Python >= 3.10
• mcp (MCP Python SDK)
• requests

License

MIT