Brave Search

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Search the web, news, images, videos and places using Brave's independent search index and get AI summaries.

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npx -y @brave/brave-search-mcp-server

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  • BRAVE_API_KEY listing.env.secret Your API key for the service
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mcp.tc/i/brave-search

Connects an assistant to the Brave Search API. It offers web, local business, place, image, video and news search, plus a summarizer that turns web search results into AI-generated summaries. Search calls accept country, language, safesearch and freshness filters.

Runs locally over STDIO with npx (@brave/brave-search-mcp-server). An HTTP transport can be enabled with the BRAVE_MCP_TRANSPORT variable or the --transport http argument. It needs a Brave Search API key in BRAVE_API_KEY. Some features, such as extra snippets and full local search, require a Pro plan.

  • Search the web with country, language and freshness filters
  • Find news articles with recency controls
  • Search images and videos with metadata
  • Look up local businesses and points of interest
  • Generate AI summaries from web search results
  • Re-rank results with custom Goggles

listing.notools.key

  • Search the web for the latest Node.js release notes

  • Find news from the past day about the EU AI Act

  • Find coffee shops near Shibuya, Tokyo with opening hours

  • Search for videos explaining how transformers work

listing.setup.local

Claude Code

  1. Run this in a terminal, in your project folder:
claude mcp add --transport stdio brave-search --env "BRAVE_API_KEY=<YOUR_BRAVE_API_KEY>" -- npx -y @brave/brave-search-mcp-server
  1. Start Claude Code and type /mcp. brave-search should show as connected.

Add --scope user to make it available in every project. Replace the placeholders with your own values.

Claude Desktop

  1. Open Settings → Developer → Edit Config. It opens claude_desktop_config.json. Add:
claude_desktop_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brave-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@brave/brave-search-mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "<YOUR_BRAVE_API_KEY>"
      }
    }
  }
}
  1. Save the file and restart Claude Desktop. Replace the placeholders with your own values.

Needs Node.js on your computer. The file lives in ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/ on macOS and %APPDATA%\Claude\ on Windows.

Cursor

Add to Cursor a11y.new_tab

Or add it by hand to ~/.cursor/mcp.json (all projects) or .cursor/mcp.json (this project):

mcp.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brave-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@brave/brave-search-mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "<YOUR_BRAVE_API_KEY>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Needs Node.js on your computer. Replace the placeholders with your own values.

VS Code

Add it to .vscode/mcp.json. VS Code asks for the secret the first time and stores it securely:

.vscode/mcp.json
{
  "servers": {
    "brave-search": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@brave/brave-search-mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "${input:brave-api-key}"
      }
    }
  },
  "inputs": [
    {
      "type": "promptString",
      "id": "brave-api-key",
      "description": "BRAVE_API_KEY",
      "password": true
    }
  ]
}

Needs Node.js on your computer.

Devin Desktop

  1. Add it to ~/.config/devin/mcp_config.json (macOS and Linux) or %APPDATA%\devin\mcp_config.json (Windows):
mcp_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brave-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@brave/brave-search-mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "<YOUR_BRAVE_API_KEY>"
      }
    }
  }
}
  1. Refresh the MCP server list in Cascade. Replace the placeholders with your own values.

Devin Desktop is the new name for Windsurf.

Codex

codex mcp add brave-search --env "BRAVE_API_KEY=<YOUR_BRAVE_API_KEY>" -- npx -y @brave/brave-search-mcp-server

Or edit ~/.codex/config.toml directly:

config.toml
[mcp_servers.brave-search]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "@brave/brave-search-mcp-server"]
env = { BRAVE_API_KEY = "<YOUR_BRAVE_API_KEY>" }

Needs Node.js on your computer. Replace the placeholders with your own values.

Gemini CLI

gemini mcp add -e "BRAVE_API_KEY=<YOUR_BRAVE_API_KEY>" brave-search npx -- -y @brave/brave-search-mcp-server

This adds it to the current project. Add -s user to use it everywhere.

Any client

Most clients that start local servers accept this shape:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brave-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@brave/brave-search-mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "<YOUR_BRAVE_API_KEY>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Zed puts servers under context_servers in its settings, with the same command, args and env fields.

Needs Node.js on your computer. Replace the placeholders with your own values.

Can I paste mcp.tc/i/brave-search into my MCP client?

No. Brave Search runs on your own computer, started by your client, so it has no web address to connect to. The quick link is the page to share; the install command is npx -y @brave/brave-search-mcp-server.

Does Brave Search need an API key?

Yes. It reads BRAVE_API_KEY from its environment, and BRAVE_API_KEY is a secret. Put the value in your client's config on your own machine, never in a shared file.

Is Brave Search a remote or a local server?

Local. Your client starts it as a process on your computer with npx -y @brave/brave-search-mcp-server, which needs Node.js.

What can Brave Search do?

You can search the web with country, language and freshness filters, find news articles with recency controls and search images and videos with metadata.

Which clients can use it?

Any client that starts local servers: Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, Devin Desktop, Codex, Gemini CLI, Zed and others. claude.ai and ChatGPT only connect to remote servers.

Who wrote this page?

mcp.tc's robot read Brave Search's public metadata (its package and repository pages), and an AI model drafted the text from it. A person reviews anything the checks can't confirm. The text can still be wrong, so if you spot a mistake, use Report this listing on this page.

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