Brave Search MCP Server

An MCP server implementation that integrates the Brave Search API, providing both web and local search capabilities.

Features

Web Search: General queries, news, articles, with pagination and freshness controls
Local Search: Find businesses, restaurants, and services with detailed information
Flexible Filtering: Control result types, safety levels, and content freshness
Smart Fallbacks: Local search automatically falls back to web when no results are found

Tools

brave_web_search
- Execute web searches with pagination and filtering
- Inputs:
  - query (string): Search terms
  - count (number, optional): Results per page (max 20)
  - offset (number, optional): Pagination offset (max 9)
brave_local_search
- Search for local businesses and services
- Inputs:
  - query (string): Local search terms
  - count (number, optional): Number of results (max 20)
- Automatically falls back to web search if no local results found

Configuration

Getting an API Key

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

Usage with Claude Desktop

Add this to your claude_desktop_config.json:

Docker

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brave-search": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "-e",
        "BRAVE_API_KEY",
        "mcp/brave-search"
      ],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY_HERE"
      }
    }
  }
}

NPX

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brave-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@modelcontextprotocol/server-brave-search"
      ],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY_HERE"
      }
    }
  }
}

Usage with VS Code

For quick installation, use the one-click installation buttons below...

For manual installation, add the following JSON block to your User Settings (JSON) file in VS Code. You can do this by pressing Ctrl + Shift + P and typing Preferences: Open User Settings (JSON).

Optionally, you can add it to a file called .vscode/mcp.json in your workspace. This will allow you to share the configuration with others.

Note that the mcp key is not needed in the .vscode/mcp.json file.

Docker

{
  "mcp": {
    "inputs": [
      {
        "type": "promptString",
        "id": "brave_api_key",
        "description": "Brave Search API Key",
        "password": true
      }
    ],
    "servers": {
      "brave-search": {
        "command": "docker",
        "args": [
          "run",
          "-i",
          "--rm",
          "-e",
          "BRAVE_API_KEY",
          "mcp/brave-search"
        ],
        "env": {
          "BRAVE_API_KEY": "${input:brave_api_key}"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

NPX

{
  "mcp": {
    "inputs": [
      {
        "type": "promptString",
        "id": "brave_api_key",
        "description": "Brave Search API Key",
        "password": true
      }
    ],
    "servers": {
      "brave-search": {
        "command": "npx",
        "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-brave-search"],
        "env": {
          "BRAVE_API_KEY": "${input:brave_api_key}"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Build

Docker build:

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

License

This MCP server is licensed under the MIT License. This means you are free to use, modify, and distribute the software, subject to the terms and conditions of the MIT License. For more details, please see the LICENSE file in the project repository.

This server cannot be installed

security - not tested

license - not found

quality - not tested

How are these scores calculated?

remote-capable server

The server can be hosted and run remotely because it primarily relies on remote services or has no dependency on the local environment.

Enables web searching and local business discovery through the Brave Search API. Provides both general web search with pagination and filtering controls, plus local business search with automatic fallback to web results.

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