Perplexity Tool for Claude Desktop

Integrations

  • Provides support for storing Perplexity API keys securely in environment variables for better security practices when sharing code.

  • Allows Claude to perform web-based research through Perplexity AI's API, providing answers with citations. Supports configuration of parameters like temperature, max tokens, domain filtering, and recency filtering.

Perplexity Tool for Claude Desktop

A custom MCP tool that integrates Perplexity AI's API with Claude Desktop, allowing Claude to perform web-based research and provide answers with citations.

Prerequisites Installation

  1. Install Git:
    • For Mac:
      • Install Homebrew first by pasting this in Terminal:
      /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
      • Then install Git:
      brew install git
    • For Windows:
  2. Install Node.js:
    • For Mac:
      brew install node
    • For Windows:
  3. Verify installations by running:
git --version node --version

Tool Installation

  1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/letsbuildagent/perplexity-tool cd perplexity-tool
  1. Install dependencies
npm install
  1. Set up your API Key

You have two options:

Option 1 (Quick setup):

  • Open server.js
  • Find this line:
const PERPLEXITY_API_KEY = "YOUR-API-KEY-HERE";
  • Replace with your Perplexity API key

Option 2 (Best practice):

  • Create a .env file:
    # On Mac/Linux: touch .env open .env # On Windows: notepad .env
    Or simply create a new file named .env in your text editor
  • Add your API key to the .env file:
    PERPLEXITY_API_KEY=your-api-key-here
  • Install dotenv:
    npm install dotenv
  • Update server.js:
    import 'dotenv/config' const PERPLEXITY_API_KEY = process.env.PERPLEXITY_API_KEY;
  1. Configure Claude Desktop
  • Open ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
  • Add this configuration:
{ "mcpServers": { "perplexity-tool": { "command": "node", "args": [ "/full/path/to/perplexity-tool/server.js" ] } } }

Replace /full/path/to with the actual path where you cloned the repository.

  1. Restart Claude Desktop

Usage

Once installed, you can use the tool through Claude with commands like:

  • "Ask Perplexity about recent developments in AI"
  • "Use Perplexity to research the history of quantum computing"
  • "Search Perplexity for information about climate change, focusing on the last month"

Advanced Options

You can specify additional parameters:

  • temperature: Controls response randomness (0-2)
  • max_tokens: Limits response length
  • search_domain_filter: Restricts search to specific domains
  • search_recency_filter: Filters by time period (day/week/month/year)

Troubleshooting

  1. Git not found:
    • Make sure you've installed Git correctly
    • Try restarting your terminal
    • On Mac, make sure Homebrew is in your PATH
  2. Node.js errors:
    • Verify Node.js installation with node --version
    • Try reinstalling Node.js
  3. API Key issues:
    • Make sure you've correctly copied your API key
    • Check that there are no extra spaces in your .env file
    • If using Option 2, verify dotenv is installed
  4. Tool not appearing in Claude:
    • Check the path in claude_desktop_config.json
    • Make sure the path points to your server.js file
    • Restart Claude Desktop
    • Check the console for any error messages

License

MIT

Security Note

If you're planning to share your code or make it public:

  • Don't commit your API key to Git
  • Use the .env method (Option 2)
  • Add .env to your .gitignore file

You must be authenticated.

A
security – no known vulnerabilities
A
license - permissive license
A
quality - confirmed to work

local-only server

The server can only run on the client's local machine because it depends on local resources.

A custom MCP tool that integrates Perplexity AI's API with Claude Desktop, allowing Claude to perform web-based research and provide answers with citations.

  1. Prerequisites Installation
    1. Tool Installation
      1. Usage
        1. Advanced Options
      2. Troubleshooting
        1. License
          1. Security Note

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