remote-contract-jobs

A small Python CLI and optional MCP server for finding remote part-time, contract, and freelance work from public APIs and RSS feeds. Built for a developer in Vietnam (UTC+7) who needs opportunities outside US-only hiring restrictions and cannot participate in video/camera interviews, in-person meetings, or ID document collection.

The package fetches public data with GET requests, filters and ranks posts locally, and links back to the originals. It does not apply to jobs or contact employers. Python 3.10+; MIT; maintained by Trung Thanh Tran (Tthanh2k6).

Install

pipx install remote-contract-jobs        # or: uvx remote-contract-jobs search --help
# Include the optional MCP server:
pipx install 'remote-contract-jobs[mcp]'

For a local checkout:

python -m pip install -e '.[dev]'
python -m pytest -q

On Windows, use python -X utf8 for commands that print Unicode.

CLI

remote-contract-jobs sources
remote-contract-jobs search --q supabase --q "react native"
remote-contract-jobs search --q python --exclude sales --sources himalayas,remotive,hn
remote-contract-jobs search --max-age-days 14 --include-fulltime --min-score 40 --limit 30 --format md
remote-contract-jobs search --format json --show-rejected --no-cache
remote-contract-jobs --config ./config.example.toml search

Defaults: all eight sources, any keyword, no excludes, seven days, no full-time, minimum score 40, maximum 30 results. Repeating --q uses any match; matching is case-insensitive substring matching across title, tags and full available text. Unknown employment types are excluded. Full-time is added only with --include-fulltime. Types absent from structured fields are inferred from the title and first 300 text characters.

Table and Markdown output include score, title, company, source name, age, location, source link, reasons and flags. JSON returns an object containing jobs, source_errors, and attribution; --show-rejected adds rejected records with rejection_reasons. filtered_out is always present: the number of dropped posts and a count per reason (a post failing several checks counts once under each). JSON attribution stays inside the object so stdout remains valid JSON. One failed source does not stop the others, including when an earlier page succeeded. Invalid options/configuration return exit code 2; completed searches, including partial results with source errors, return 0. Always inspect source_errors.

Configuration

Copy config.example.toml to ~/.config/remote-contract-jobs/config.toml, or use --config PATH before the subcommand or after search/mcp.

keywords = ["supabase", "postgres", "react native", "expo", "python", "automation", "scraping", "n8n", "apps script", "mcp"]
excludes = []
ashby_boards = ["supabase"]
max_age_days = 7

The example profile is optional: built-in keywords and excludes are empty. CLI keyword/exclude lists replace their configured lists when supplied. Unknown TOML keys and invalid values are errors. Ashby board names are configurable; no credentials or environment files are required.

MCP

remote-contract-jobs mcp
remote-contract-jobs mcp --config ./config.example.toml

Example MCP client configuration (the executable must be on the client's PATH):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "remote-contract-jobs": {
      "command": "remote-contract-jobs",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Tools:

• search_jobs(query=[], exclude=[], sources=[], max_age_days=7, include_fulltime=false, min_score=40, limit=20) returns JSON-compatible jobs, source_errors, and attribution.
• list_sources() returns source IDs, display names, URLs and terms notes.

Tools only read public feeds; the local response cache is their only file write. Empty MCP query/exclude lists and the default age of 7 use configured defaults. Use an empty config file to request built-in defaults independently of your profile. The server uses stdio and keeps diagnostics off protocol stdout. Missing MCP dependencies produce an installation hint. Both MCPServer and the older FastMCP import layout are supported.

Filtering and ranking

Hard blockers are centralized in src/remote_contract_jobs/filters.py: video interviews/calls, Loom, recorded videos, webcam, camera on, in-person, ID/document uploads or collection, notarization, and background checks with ID upload. Simple explicit negations such as “no video interview” are recognized.

Location rules accept worldwide/anywhere/global, APAC/Asia/Vietnam, remote without a country restriction, and UTC/GMT offsets from +4 through +10. They reject US-only, explicit US/Canada/EU/UK residence requirements, US work authorization, full US time-zone overlap, and on-site/hybrid requirements. Explicit location fields take precedence over generic remote prose. Other unclear locations are retained with location_unclear. Undated posts are retained with date_unclear because age cannot be established. Full available text is checked even beyond the 400-character snippet.

Score is clamped to 0–100: base 20; each keyword gets 20 in title, otherwise 12 in tags, otherwise 5 in text; flexible employment adds 20; suitable location adds 20; freshness adds up to 15, declining linearly over the age window. Unclear location subtracts 15; more than three years' experience or a senior/staff/lead title subtracts 20. Results sort by score, then deduplicate using normalized company/title and URLs (ignoring tracking parameters and fragments). The highest-scoring record is retained.

Sources, terms and attribution

ID	Source	Access and terms notes
himalayas	Himalayas	Public jobs/search API; source links retained.
remotive	Remotive	Attribution and original links required. Do not republish to other job sites or gate posts behind signups. Fixture notice recommends at most four fetches daily.
remoteok	Remote OK	Attribution and source links required; no logo use without permission. Legal notice skipped when parsing.
wwr	We Work Remotely	Back-end, front-end and full-stack programming RSS feeds.
hn	Hacker News	Algolia; newest matching hiring and freelancer threads; top-level comments only. Freelancer posts must start with SEEKING FREELANCER.
n8n	n8n Community	Public Discourse topic list; original topic links.
make	Make Community	Public Discourse topic list; original topic links.
ashby	Ashby	Public configured employer boards, including compensation when available.

The client sends remote-contract-jobs/<version> (+https://github.com/Tthanh2k6/remote-contract-jobs), uses a 20-second timeout, and spaces requests to each host by at least one second within a process. Responses are cached atomically for 30 minutes in ~/.cache/remote-contract-jobs/. --no-cache bypasses both cache reads and writes. Avoid frequent polling, especially Remotive; a 30-minute cache is not a recommendation to poll every 30 minutes. Concurrent independent CLI processes do not share a rate limiter.

Limitations and verification

Heuristics can misjudge location, negation, experience and employment type. They do not prove eligibility, guarantee accessibility, or detect requirements absent from the feed. Always read the post before applying. Discourse list excerpts can be missing; those records have description_incomplete, and pinned category guides are skipped. WWR country fields take precedence over broad region labels. No HTML pages are scraped.

Search is bounded: Himalayas fetches up to five browse pages or five pages per keyword; Discourse reads the current category list; other sources use their public feed windows. HN paginates all returned comment pages for the selected threads. Source records can be stale or removed, and APIs can change. Search is not an exhaustive job index.

Tests prohibit network connections and use the supplied response fixtures plus controlled adaptations for edge cases. Despite their filenames, hn_freelancer_thread.json and hn_freelancer_comments.json contain an October 2025 Who is hiring? thread, not a freelancer thread. Freelancer-prefix behavior is tested using adapted records; an actual freelancer-thread response and live endpoints have not been verified. CI tests Python 3.10, 3.11 and 3.12. Optional SDK/client interoperability needs an MCP installation; the offline suite verifies registration and JSON results with a fake server.

Source attribution: Remotive, Remote OK.