Search and docs · Perplexity

Set up Perplexity

Grounded web answers, search and deep research through the Perplexity Sonar API, run locally.

Publisher: Perplexity Official
Run locally: npx -y @perplexity-ai/mcp-server
Transports: stdio
Authentication: A Perplexity API key in PERPLEXITY_API_KEY.
Environment: PERPLEXITY_API_KEY
What it can touch: Read-only.
Licence: MIT
Source: github.com/perplexityai/modelcontextprotocol
Status: Active

Install

This server runs on your machine as a child process of the client. You need the runtime its command uses, such as Node.js for npx, uv for uvx or Docker, plus any variables listed under Environment.

Claude Code

shell

claude mcp add --scope project --env PERPLEXITY_API_KEY='<PERPLEXITY_API_KEY>' perplexity -- npx -y @perplexity-ai/mcp-server

Cursor

.cursor/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "perplexity": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@perplexity-ai/mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "PERPLEXITY_API_KEY": "${env:PERPLEXITY_API_KEY}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Codex

~/.codex/config.toml

[mcp_servers.perplexity]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "@perplexity-ai/mcp-server"]
env_vars = ["PERPLEXITY_API_KEY"]

Config for other clients →

Other servers in search and docs

MCP Steering Group

Fetch

Fetches a web page and converts it to Markdown so the model can read it. Part of the MCP project's reference set.

AWS

AWS Knowledge

AWS-hosted search over AWS documentation, blog posts, What's New entries and regional availability.

Microsoft

Microsoft Learn

Search and fetch official Microsoft and Azure documentation and code samples.

Brave

Brave Search

Brave's own server for web, news, image, video and local search through the Brave Search API.

Exa

Neural web search, page contents and code-context search for agents, hosted by Exa or run locally with an API key.

Tavily

Search, extract, crawl and map websites through Tavily's agent-oriented search API, hosted or run locally.

Sources

github.com/perplexityai/modelcontextprotocol