Brave Search MCP Server

An MCP Server implementation that integrates the Brave Search API, providing, Web Search, Local Points of Interest Search, Video Search, Image Search and News Search capabilities

Features

• Web Search: Perform a regular search on the web
• Image Search: Search the web for images. Image search results will be available as a Resource
• News Search: Search the web for news
• Video Search: Search the web for videos
• Local Points of Interest Search: Search for local physical locations, businesses, restaurants, services, etc

Tools

• brave_web_search

  • Execute web searches using Brave's API
  • Inputs:
    • query (string): The term to search the internet for
    • count (number, optional): The number of results to return (max 20, default 10)
    • offset (number, optional, default 0): The offset for pagination
    • freshness (enum, optional): Filters search results by when they were discovered
      • The following values are supported
        • pd: Discovered within the last 24 hours.
        • pw: Discovered within the last 7 Days.
        • pm: Discovered within the last 31 Days.
        • py: Discovered within the last 365 Days
        • YYYY-MM-DDtoYYYY-MM-DD: Custom date range (e.g., 2022-04-01to2022-07-30)

• brave_image_search

  • Get images from the web relevant to the query
  • Inputs:
    • query (string): The term to search the internet for images of
    • count (number, optional): The number of images to return (max 3, default 1)

• brave_news_search

  • Searches the web for news
  • Inputs:
    • query (string): The term to search the internet for news articles, trending topics, or recent events
    • count (number, optional): The number of results to return (max 20, default 10)
    • freshness (enum, optional): Filters search results by when they were discovered
      • The following values are supported
        • pd: Discovered within the last 24 hours.
        • pw: Discovered within the last 7 Days.
        • pm: Discovered within the last 31 Days.
        • py: Discovered within the last 365 Days
        • YYYY-MM-DDtoYYYY-MM-DD: Custom date range (e.g., 2022-04-01to2022-07-30)

• brave_local_search

  • Search for local businesses, services and points of interest
  • REQUIRES subscription to the Pro api plan for location results
  • Falls back to brave_web_search if no location results are found
  • Inputs:
    • query (string): Local search term
    • count (number, optional): The number of results to return (max 20, default 5)

• brave_video_search

  • Search the web for videos
  • Inputs:
    • query: (string): The term to search for videos
    • count: (number, optional): The number of videos to return (max 20, default 10)
    • freshness (enum, optional): Filters search results by when they were discovered
      • The following values are supported
        • pd: Discovered within the last 24 hours.
        • pw: Discovered within the last 7 Days.
        • pm: Discovered within the last 31 Days.
        • py: Discovered within the last 365 Days
        • YYYY-MM-DDtoYYYY-MM-DD: Custom date range (e.g., 2022-04-01to2022-07-30)

Configuration

Getting an API Key

1. Sign up for a Brave Search API account
2. Choose a plan (Free tier available with 2,000 queries/month)
3. Generate your API key from the developer dashboard

Usage with Claude Code

For Claude Code users, run this command:

Windows:

claude mcp add-json brave-search '{"command":"cmd","args":["/c","npx","-y","brave-search-mcp"],"env":{"BRAVE_API_KEY":"YOUR_API_KEY_HERE"}}'

Linux/macOS:

claude mcp add-json brave-search '{"command":"npx","args":["-y","brave-search-mcp"],"env":{"BRAVE_API_KEY":"YOUR_API_KEY_HERE"}}'

Replace YOUR_API_KEY_HERE with your actual Brave Search API key.

Usage with Claude Desktop

Desktop Extension (DXT)

1. Download the dxt file from the Releases
2. Open it with Claude Desktop or Go to File -> Settings -> Extensions and drag the .DXT file to the window to install it

Docker

1. Clone the repo
2. Docker build

docker build -t brave-search-mcp:latest -f ./Dockerfile .

3. Add this to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcp-servers": {
    "brave-search": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "-e",
        "BRAVE_API_KEY",
        "brave-search-mcp"
      ],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "YOUR API KEY HERE"
      }
    }
  }
}

NPX

Add this to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcp-servers": {
    "brave-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "brave-search-mcp"
      ],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "YOUR API KEY HERE"
      }
    }
  }
}

Usage with LibreChat

Add this to librechat.yaml

brave-search:
  command: sh
  args:
    - -c
    - BRAVE_API_KEY=API KEY npx -y brave-search-mcp

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

Desktop Extensions (DXT)

Anthropic recently released Desktop Extensions allowing installation of local MCP Servers with one click.

Install the CLI tool to help generate both manifest.json and final .dxt file.

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/dxt

Creating the manifest.json file

1. In this folder/directory which contains the local MCP Server, run dxt init. The command will start an interactive CLI to help create the manifest.json.

Creating the dxt file

1. First install dev dependencies and build

npm install
npm run build

2. Then install only the production dependencies, generate a smaller nodule_modules directory

npm install --omit=dev

3. Run dxt pack to create a dxt file. This will also validate the manifest.json that was created. The dxt is essentially a zip file and will contain everything in this directory.

Disclaimer

This library is not officially associated with Brave Software. It is a third-party implementation of the Brave Search API with a MCP Server.

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 - see the LICENSE file for details.