Desearch

Desearch MCP Server

If Desearch is useful, a star helps others find it.

Remote: https://mcp.desearch.ai/mcp with header Authorization: Bearer <DESEARCH_API_KEY>.

Local: npx -y desearch-mcp-server with env DESEARCH_API_KEY.

Get a key.

Find Desearch on

• Official MCP Registry
• Smithery
• Glama
• VoltAgent official MCP servers
• Gemini CLI extensions
• Raycast MCP Registry

Demo

Prompt: Search the web for latest news on AI.

web-search takes query (required) and start (optional pagination offset: 0, 10, 20, ...).

{
    "name": "web-search",
    "arguments": {
        "query": "latest news on AI"
    }
}

Example output:

{
    "data": [
        {
            "title": "Example result",
            "link": "https://example.com/page",
            "snippet": "Short preview text."
        }
    ]
}

The tool returns that JSON as pretty-printed text: { "content": [{ "type": "text", "text": "<json above>" }] }.

AI search, X search and web search for AI agents, plus page extraction, X data tools, and People Search (find people and creators on X, YouTube, LinkedIn, and TikTok). Bring your own Desearch API key.

Tools

The Desearch MCP server includes the following tools.

Lookup tools, including search and fetch, set readOnlyHint: true, destructiveHint: false, and openWorldHint: true. people-search starts a paid job billed to the user's Desearch balance, so readOnlyHint is false and destructiveHint is true. people-search-control can cancel a search, so readOnlyHint is false and destructiveHint is true. openWorldHint is true on every tool because the call reaches a live external source.

• AI Search (ai-search): Performs AI Twitter and web searches with relevant links and summary. tools uses short source ids (web, twitter, arxiv, wikipedia, hackernews, reddit). Older labels such as Web Search, ArXiv Search, Wikipedia Search, Hacker News Search, and Reddit Search are still accepted and sent as the short id. youtube is not accepted. Default is ["web", "twitter"].
• X Search (x-search): Tweet search on X. Arguments: query (required), count (optional, default 20). Sort stays Top. Optional filters: user, start_date, end_date (YYYY-MM-DD), lang, verified, blue_verified, is_quote, is_video, is_image, min_retweets, min_replies, min_likes.
• Search (search): Web search that returns { results: [{ id, title, url }] }. Argument: query (required). id is the result URL.
• Fetch Page (fetch): Read a public page as text. Argument: id (required, an http or https URL from search).
• Web Search (web-search): SERP-style web search. Arguments: query (required), start (optional pagination offset).
• Web Links Search (web-links-search): Web link search. Arguments: prompt (required), tools (optional, only web, default ["web"]; Web Search is accepted and rewritten to web), count (optional, 10–200). The links/web API rejects other sources, so they are not in the enum.
• Extract (extract): Read a public URL as text or HTML. Preferred over crawl. Arguments: url (required), format (optional, html or text), js (optional), wait (optional milliseconds).

The full SDK method → endpoint → MCP tool map is in docs/API_MCP_PARITY.md. Every public desearch-js 1.5 method is a tool. latestTweets was removed from the SDK (GET /twitter/latest in 1.0.1) and is not exposed. People Search is not in desearch-js 1.5; its tools call the /desearch/people/* routes directly, and the parity doc lists them too.

People Search

People Search finds X profiles, YouTube creators, LinkedIn members, or TikTok creators who match a plain-language description. Each person comes back with a fit score, one line on why they matched, their audience (followers, or subscribers on YouTube), location, and the public contacts and links the search found.

A search is a background task:

1. people-search starts a paid job billed to the user's Desearch balance and returns a task_id at once. It is the only billed People Search call. It reserves count people at the platform's per-person price (reserved_cost_usd). When the search ends you pay only for the people it delivered (a per-search minimum applies when it finds anyone; a search that finds no one is free), and the rest of the reservation is returned. Send the same idempotency_key to retry a call without starting, or paying for, a second search.
2. The search usually runs for 1 to 5 minutes. people-search-status returns its status, progress, cost, and the people found so far. People arrive while it runs: pass next_cursor back as cursor to get only the new ones. When done is true and has_more is false, you have everyone it found.
3. people-search-control pauses, resumes, or cancels it. A cancelled search bills only the people it already delivered.

People found stay readable for 30 days after a search ends. people-profiles lists them per platform across all your searches, with filters such as has: ["email"].

Search filters depend on the platform. A filter that does not apply is rejected before the billed call.

require_contact keeps only creators with a public email (on TikTok, in the bio). keywords and exclude_keywords take up to 20 words each.

metadata labels a search with your own keys, for example {"campaign": "q4-outbound", "workspace_id": "ws_42"}. A search takes up to 10 keys; keys are 1–40 characters of a-z, 0-9, _, . or -, and values are strings of up to 200 characters. A bad label is rejected before the billed call. The labels come back as metadata on the task, and people-search-tasks with metadata: {"campaign": "q4-outbound"} lists only the searches that carry them (up to 3 pairs, exact match). The search itself does not use them.

Prompt: find 10 TikTok skincare creators with a public email.

{
    "name": "people-search",
    "arguments": {
        "platform": "tiktok",
        "query": "Skincare creators who review skincare products",
        "count": 10,
        "require_contact": true
    }
}

Example output:

{
    "task_id": "3f1c2b9e-8d4a-4c1e-9b7a-2e5f6a7b8c9d",
    "platform": "tiktok",
    "status": "queued",
    "done": false,
    "query": "Skincare creators who review skincare products",
    "count": 10,
    "result_count": 0,
    "reserved_cost_usd": 0.5,
    "created_at": "2026-10-17T10:00:00Z",
    "cost_usd": 0.5,
    "currency": "USD",
    "next": "Searches usually take 1 to 5 minutes. Poll people-search-status with this task_id every 15 to 30 seconds; people appear while it runs."
}

Then poll with {"task_id": "3f1c2b9e-8d4a-4c1e-9b7a-2e5f6a7b8c9d"} on people-search-status:

{
    "task_id": "3f1c2b9e-8d4a-4c1e-9b7a-2e5f6a7b8c9d",
    "platform": "tiktok",
    "status": "running",
    "stage": "processing",
    "done": false,
    "query": "Skincare creators who review skincare products",
    "count": 10,
    "result_count": 4,
    "progress": { "round": 1, "candidates_processed": 40, "qualified": 4 },
    "reserved_cost_usd": 0.5,
    "created_at": "2026-10-17T10:00:00Z",
    "people": [
        {
            "id": "tiktok:example_creator",
            "platform": "tiktok",
            "handle": "example_creator",
            "name": "Example Creator",
            "url": "https://www.tiktok.com/@example_creator",
            "audience": 48200,
            "location": "United States",
            "score": 88,
            "why": "Reviews sunscreens and moisturizers every week.",
            "contacts": [{ "type": "email", "value": "[email protected]" }],
            "links": [{ "type": "instagram", "url": "https://instagram.com/example_creator" }],
            "evidence_url": "https://www.tiktok.com/@example_creator/video/1"
        }
    ],
    "next_cursor": "4",
    "has_more": false,
    "next": "Still searching. Wait 15 to 30 seconds, then call people-search-status again with cursor \"4\" to get only the people found since this call."
}

The output above is shortened to one person. CSV and JSON Lines downloads (/export routes) are not MCP tools; call the API directly for a file.

When the search has ended, the task also says why and how complete it is, and each person says what their own profile confirms (0.3.2 and later):

{
    "status": "completed",
    "done": true,
    "completion_reason": "cost_limit",
    "coverage_limited": true,
    "warnings": [
        { "code": "partial_enrichment", "platform": "linkedin", "attempted": 20, "failed": 7, "by_reason": { "not_found": 7 } }
    ],
    "people": [
        {
            "handle": "example_engineer",
            "score": 74,
            "fully_verified": false,
            "unverified_criteria": ["Profile fit: Software Engineer based in Georgia (unknown)"],
            "enrichment": "failed",
            "enrichment_error": "not_found"
        }
    ],
    "next": "Finished early: a budget stopped it (cost_limit) before it found 10 people, so more people may match. You have every person it found."
}

• completion_reason is one of count_reached, rounds_exhausted, no_candidates, zero_qualified, candidate_budget, cost_limit, time_limit, cancelled, or failed. It is left out while the search runs.
• coverage_limited appears (as true) only when a budget stopped the search before it found count people. The status is still completed.
• warnings lists what made part of the search less reliable. partial_enrichment: failed of attempted profiles could not be read after search, so those people were scored on the search hit and show enrichment: "failed" with enrichment_error.
• fully_verified is true when every criterion is confirmed by the person's own profile or posts. unverified_criteria lists up to five that are not: (unknown), (not met), or a disqualifier that (applies). Both are information only: the person still qualified. Results scored before 2026-10-20 have neither.

Prerequisites 📋

• An Desearch API Key
• Node.js (v20.18.1 or higher; Node 22 is supported. Node 18 is not.)
• Claude Desktop installed
• Cursor IDE

Installation 🛠️

NPM Installation

The package name is desearch-mcp-server. The current version is on npm. See CHANGELOG.md for release notes. The stdio entry is the desearch-mcp-server bin (build/index.js), which requires DESEARCH_API_KEY.

npm install -g desearch-mcp-server

Or run it without a global install:

npx -y desearch-mcp-server

Cursor or Claude can start that bin directly:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "desearch": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": ["-y", "desearch-mcp-server"],
            "env": {
                "DESEARCH_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
            }
        }
    }
}

command: "desearch-mcp-server" (no args) is the same entry after the global install above.

Gemini CLI

Install the extension from this repository. Gemini CLI asks for your Desearch API key (stored as a sensitive setting) and connects to the hosted server https://mcp.desearch.ai/mcp:

gemini extensions install https://github.com/Desearch-ai/mcp-desearch

To change the key later, run gemini extensions config desearch. AI agents such as Cline can follow llms-install.md to set up the server.

Using Smithery

To install the Desearch MCP server for Claude Desktop automatically via Smithery:

npx -y @smithery/cli install desearch/desearch --client claude

Or for Cursor IDE:

npx -y @smithery/cli install desearch/desearch --client cursor

Windsurf

Windsurf's Cascade agent reads MCP servers from mcp_config.json under the mcpServers key. Open it from the Cascade panel: click the ... (Actions) menu, then Open MCP config file. Windsurf builds use ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json (on Windows, %USERPROFILE%\.codeium\windsurf\mcp_config.json). Newer builds may open ~/.config/devin/mcp_config.json instead (Windows: %APPDATA%\devin\mcp_config.json); edit whichever file that action opens.

Hosted server (no local install). Remote servers use serverUrl with headers:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "desearch": {
            "serverUrl": "https://mcp.desearch.ai/mcp",
            "headers": {
                "Authorization": "Bearer your-api-key"
            }
        }
    }
}

To keep the key out of the file, Windsurf can interpolate an environment variable: "Authorization": "Bearer ${env:DESEARCH_API_KEY}".

Local stdio alternative:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "desearch": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": ["-y", "desearch-mcp-server"],
            "env": {
                "DESEARCH_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
            }
        }
    }
}

Save the file, then refresh the MCP servers list in Cascade.

Zed

Zed calls MCP servers context servers. Open your settings file with the zed: open settings file action (or use Settings → AI → MCP Servers → Add Server) and add a context_servers entry.

Hosted server:

{
    "context_servers": {
        "desearch": {
            "url": "https://mcp.desearch.ai/mcp",
            "headers": {
                "Authorization": "Bearer your-api-key"
            }
        }
    }
}

Local stdio alternative:

{
    "context_servers": {
        "desearch": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": ["-y", "desearch-mcp-server"],
            "env": {
                "DESEARCH_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
            }
        }
    }
}

The server is ready when the dot next to desearch in Settings → AI → MCP Servers turns green ("Server is active").

Configuration ⚙️

1. Configure Cursor IDE to run the Desearch MCP server

Open Cursor IDE, access command palette Cmd+Shift+P or Ctrl+Shift+P, and search for Open MCP Settings. Click on Add new global MCP server to open the mcp.json file.

2. Add the Desearch server configuration:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "desearch": {
            "command": "desearch-mcp-server",
            "env": {
                "DESEARCH_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
            }
        }
    }
}

Replace your-api-key with your actual Desearch API key from console.desearch.ai/api-keys.

3. Restart Cursor IDE

For the changes to take effect:

1. Completely quit Cursor IDE
2. Start Cursor IDE again

1. Configure Claude Desktop to run the Desearch MCP server

Open the Claude Desktop app and enable Developer Mode from the top-left menu bar.

Once enabled, open Settings (also from the top-left menu bar) and navigate to the Developer Option, where you'll find the Edit Config button. Clicking it will open the claude_desktop_config.json file, allowing you to make the necessary edits.

OR (if you want to open claude_desktop_config.json from terminal)

For macOS:

1. Open your Claude Desktop config:

code ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

For Windows:

1. Open your Claude Desktop configuration:

code %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add the Desearch server configuration:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "desearch": {
            "command": "desearch-mcp-server",
            "env": {
                "DESEARCH_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
            }
        }
    }
}

Replace your-api-key with your actual Desearch API key from console.desearch.ai/api-keys.

3. Restart Claude Desktop

For the changes to take effect:

1. Completely quit Claude Desktop
2. Start Claude Desktop again
3. You can verify the server by checking status in Settings > Developer > desearch

Remote Streamable HTTP

The same server can run over MCP Streamable HTTP for a remote client. Local stdio (desearch-mcp-server, Smithery) is unchanged and still reads DESEARCH_API_KEY from the environment.

Remote requests do not use that environment variable. Discovery does not need a key: initialize, notifications/initialized, ping, tools/list, prompts/list, resources/list, and resources/templates/list return 200 so a marketplace scanner can read the tool list. tools/call and every other method still require the caller's own Desearch API key, the same key from console.desearch.ai/api-keys:

• Authorization: Bearer <DESEARCH_API_KEY> (preferred)
• x-api-key: <DESEARCH_API_KEY> (also accepted)
• Authorization: Bearer <oauth access token> after the OAuth sign-in below

A bare Authorization: <DESEARCH_API_KEY> value is also accepted. The key is not read from the query string. There is no shared server secret. A protected call without a valid key or access token returns 401 with a WWW-Authenticate header pointing at /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource/mcp. The hosted process forwards the per-request Desearch API key to the Desearch API only when a call needs it. An OAuth access token is opaque: the server looks up the key stored for that token and does not put the raw key in the token.

The MCP endpoint is POST /mcp. Responses are JSON (stateless Streamable HTTP). GET and DELETE on /mcp return 405 because the server does not keep a session or push server-to-client messages. GET /, GET /health, and GET /api/health are unauthenticated health checks.

Hosted endpoint

The public Streamable HTTP endpoint is https://mcp.desearch.ai/mcp. Listing the tools does not need a key. Send your Desearch API key on each tools/call using Authorization: Bearer <DESEARCH_API_KEY> (preferred). The x-api-key header is also accepted. Use the key from console.desearch.ai/api-keys. The server does not read a key from the query string. Remote requests do not use a process-level DESEARCH_API_KEY.

Cursor, or any remote MCP client:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "desearch": {
            "url": "https://mcp.desearch.ai/mcp",
            "headers": {
                "Authorization": "Bearer your-api-key"
            }
        }
    }
}

OAuth sign-in

Clients that follow the MCP authorization spec (2025-06-18) can sign in instead of sending a key on every request. Discovery documents:

• GET /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource
• GET /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource/mcp
• GET /.well-known/oauth-authorization-server
• GET /.well-known/openid-configuration (same authorization server document)

POST /register is dynamic client registration. GET /authorize is the Desearch page where the user pastes an API key. POST /token exchanges the authorization code and rotates refresh tokens. PKCE S256 is required. Public clients use token_endpoint_auth_method none.

Allowed callback URLs:

• https://claude.ai/api/mcp/auth_callback
• https://claude.com/api/mcp/auth_callback
• https://chatgpt.com/connector_platform_oauth_redirect
• https://chatgpt.com/connector/oauth/{callback_id}
• Loopback http://localhost, http://127.0.0.1, and http://[::1] on any port (host and path must match the registered callback)

The connector URL is https://mcp.desearch.ai/mcp. On the sign-in page, paste a key from console.desearch.ai/api-keys. Leave a client id blank when the client can register itself.

Environment variables for the host:

The key check calls GET /twitter/trends?woeid=1&count=1. A real key is authenticated and then rejected as invalid input (HTTP 422), so the check does not run a full trends query. Only 422 counts as a valid key. 401 and 403 reject the key. Any other status, including a 2xx, is a verification error and is not treated as valid.

POST /register allows 10 requests an hour per IP. The sign-in key check allows 20 requests every 10 minutes per IP. A request past the limit returns 429 with Retry-After. On Vercel the address is the first X-Forwarded-For hop. The sign-in page uses Referrer-Policy: same-origin and posts response_type=code with the other authorize fields. The form accepts a same-origin Origin or Referer, and accepts Sec-Fetch-Site: same-origin when Origin is missing or null. It rejects Sec-Fetch-Site cross-site and same-site, a foreign Origin, and a POST that has no origin signal.

Use with Claude (custom connector)

Desearch is not in the Claude Connectors Directory yet. You can add the hosted server as a custom connector with your Desearch API key, or with OAuth sign-in.

Sources: Custom remote MCP connectors and connector authentication. Request-header authentication is a beta feature in Claude.

Claude.ai / Claude Desktop (organization admin)

1. Open Organization settings > Connectors.
2. Select Add, then Custom. If asked for the connector type, choose Web.
3. Server URL: https://mcp.desearch.ai/mcp
4. Sign-in option: No sign-in.
5. Under Request headers, add Authorization with Bearer <DESEARCH_API_KEY> as the value, replacing <DESEARCH_API_KEY> with your Desearch API key.
6. Select Add.

The header value is stored once and shared by everyone in the organization who uses the connector.

OAuth alternative: choose sign-in instead of a request header, leave the OAuth client id empty so the client can register itself, and paste a Desearch API key on the Desearch page. The callback URL for hosted Claude apps is https://claude.ai/api/mcp/auth_callback. Claude Code uses a loopback callback, which this server accepts on any port.

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http desearch https://mcp.desearch.ai/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer your-api-key"

Run locally

npm install
npm run build
npm run start:http

This listens on 0.0.0.0:3000 (PORT and HOST override that). MCP_TRANSPORT=http is the same as --http.

curl -sS http://127.0.0.1:3000/mcp \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'Accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer your-api-key' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2025-03-26","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"smoke","version":"0.0.1"}}}'

Cursor (or any remote MCP client):

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "desearch": {
            "url": "http://127.0.0.1:3000/mcp",
            "headers": {
                "Authorization": "Bearer your-api-key"
            }
        }
    }
}

The image default is stdio MCP (node build/index.js). Registries such as Glama start the container and speak MCP on stdin/stdout, so the image does not pass --http unless you override it. Stdio requires DESEARCH_API_KEY. Smithery does not use this image command; smithery.yaml starts node build/index.js and injects DESEARCH_API_KEY itself.

Streamable HTTP is an override. Replace the command with --http, or set MCP_TRANSPORT=http and keep the default command. The image still exposes port 3000 for that mode.

docker build -t desearch-mcp .
# stdio (image default)
docker run --rm -e DESEARCH_API_KEY=your-api-key -i desearch-mcp
# Streamable HTTP
docker run --rm -p 3000:3000 desearch-mcp node build/index.js --http
# same HTTP mode via env, without replacing the command
docker run --rm -e MCP_TRANSPORT=http -p 3000:3000 desearch-mcp

Deploy on Vercel

Vercel fits the MCP handler because each JSON-RPC call is one response. vercel.json builds the project, serves POST /mcp, and sets the function duration to 60 seconds. The same file rewrites the public OAuth paths to /api/*. The server accepts those rewritten paths and the public paths, and the metadata documents still advertise the public paths. Hobby plans cap function duration lower than that, so AI Search tool calls need a plan that allows at least 60 seconds. initialize and tools/list are short either way.

OAuth codes and tokens need shared storage. On Vercel set OAUTH_STORE=redis, REDIS_URL, OAUTH_ENCRYPTION_KEY, and OAUTH_ISSUER=https://mcp.desearch.ai. The server refuses OAuth when OAUTH_ISSUER is unset or OAUTH_STORE is not redis, because Vercel sets VERCEL on every function. OAUTH_REQUIRE_AUTH_ON_INITIALIZE=true is optional. Leave it unset unless a client treats public initialize as a reason to skip sign-in.

No server-side Desearch API key is required in the Vercel project. After deploy, the endpoint is:

https://<project>.vercel.app/mcp

https://mcp.desearch.ai/mcp is the public hostname. This repo does not create DNS records. Clients send Authorization: Bearer <DESEARCH_API_KEY> (preferred). The x-api-key header is also accepted.

The same node build/index.js --http process is the fallback if you would rather run a long-lived Node host instead of Vercel. The Docker image defaults to stdio; pass --http or set MCP_TRANSPORT=http to serve Streamable HTTP from it.

Troubleshooting 🔧

Common Issues

1. Server Not Found

   • Check Claude or Cursor Desktop configuration syntax
   • Ensure Node.js is installed

2. API Key Issues

   • Confirm your DESEARCH_API_KEY is valid
   • Check the DESEARCH_API_KEY is correctly set in the Cursor or Claude Desktop config
   • Verify that there are no spaces around the API key
   • For the remote HTTP server, send Authorization: Bearer <DESEARCH_API_KEY> (preferred); x-api-key is also accepted. A hosted DESEARCH_API_KEY environment variable is not used for those requests.

3. Connection Issues

   • Restart Claude Desktop or Cursor IDE completely
   • Check Claude Desktop logs:

   # macOS
   tail -n 50 -f ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp*.log
   
   # Windows
   type "%APPDATA%\Claude\logs\mcp*.log"