Trending topics API for AI agents

A trending topics API returns ranked lists of what is spiking right now, with no keyword required. Trends MCP serves 21 live feed types through one MCP connection. As of August 19, 2026, the Google Trends feed was led by hayden panettiere, the X feed by Good Wednesday, and the TikTok hashtag feed by spiderman. The free plan includes 100 requests per month. Starter is $19 per month.

What 4 live feeds showed on August 19, 2026

The Google Trends breakout list was led by hayden panettiere at rank 1, inde navarrette at 2, powerball winner at 3, natalie harp at 4, and egg recall at 5. Hurricane lala took 6, rebel creamery ice cream lawsuit 7, karoline leavitt 8, what time is the solar eclipse on august 12 at 9, and frank beard at 10.

The X (Twitter) Trending feed was led by Good Wednesday at rank 1, Baleba at 2, $MRNA at 3, Hump Day at 4, and Vindman at 5. Phase 3 took 7, Konsa 8, Nick Kyrgios 14, and Keytruda 15. The $MRNA entry lined up with CNBC's report the same day that Moderna stock soared 90% on a cancer vaccine trial.

The TikTok Trending Hashtags feed was led by spiderman at rank 1, movie at 2, tiktokshop at 3, music at 4, and onthisday at 5. Marvel took 7, school 8, gaming 12, gym 13, and backtoschool 15. The Reddit Hot Posts feed was led by a post on empathy and kindness at rank 1, with a De-Flock America campaign post at 8 and a Unitree Robotics humanoid robot post at 23.

The exact calls

get_top_trends takes a feed type and a limit, not a keyword. get_growth and get_trends score and chart the phrases a feed surfaces.

get_top_trends(type='Google Trends', limit=25)

get_top_trends(type='TikTok Trending Hashtags', limit=25)

How feeds differ from history tools

A live feed answers what is spiking right now. History tools answer how a known phrase has moved. Discovery workflows start from a feed, then pass surviving phrases into get_growth for scored history. That 2-step pattern keeps quota predictable: feeds cost 1 call each, and only the handful of phrases that survive filtering consume history calls.

The feed catalog spans search, social, commerce, news, and entertainment: Amazon Best Sellers, App Store Top Free, Google Play, GitHub Trending Repos, IMDb MOVIEmeter, Spotify Top Podcasts, Steam Most Played, Google News Top News, and Wikipedia Trending alongside the 4 feeds above. The real-time trends API page covers freshness by source, and the search trend API page covers the history tools.

Who uses a trending topics API

Content teams scan 3 or 4 feeds each morning to pick topics before they peak. Social teams watch TikTok hashtags and X trends for format ideas. Investors watch Google Trends breakouts as an early attention signal, then confirm with history calls.

A practical workflow: pull Google Trends, Reddit Hot Posts, and X Trending at 8:00 UTC, filter each list of 25 to the 3 or 4 entries in your niche, then call get_growth on each to separate 1-day spikes from durable climbers. The whole loop takes under 10 calls.

Limits and caveats

A live feed is a snapshot, not a series. Polling the same feed every 30 seconds wastes monthly quota and rarely changes the ranking. News and TikTok justify shorter intervals during a breaking window. Weekly research still starts with history tools, not with a live feed.

Feed rankings are platform-specific. A topic can lead X while absent from Google Trends, because the audiences and the ranking signals differ. Quota is 100 requests per month on the free plan, Starter $19 per month.

Getting started

Sign up on the free tier, copy the API key, and make the first call with any HTTP client. The setup guide covers Claude, Cursor, and plain REST in 4 copy-paste blocks. The reddit discussion data page covers the Reddit source in more depth.