Haunt MCP Server

Web extraction for AI agents. Give Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, or any MCP client a clean tool that turns any permitted public web page into structured JSON or Markdown from a plain-language prompt, and returns an honest machine-readable failure instead of fabricated data when a page is blocked.

Website · Docs · Get a free key · Python SDK

Built for agent workflows that need product data, competitor prices, article text, page metadata, small site-wide datasets, lead lists, or research snippets, without brittle CSS selectors. Try it with no API key using the try_demo_extract tool. Free tier: 1,000 credits a month, no card.

Quick Start

1. Add Haunt to your MCP client

This is the block to copy.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "haunt": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@hauntapi/mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "HAUNT_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Get a free API key, no card needed: https://hauntapi.com/?utm_source=github&utm_medium=readme&utm_campaign=mcp_server#signup

Prefer a CLI? npx -y --package @hauntapi/cli@latest haunt-cli init prints the same block for Claude, Cursor, Windsurf and other MCP clients. It prints config, it does not edit your files, and it is not itself the server.

2. Prove it is wired in, no key needed

Call try_demo_extract first. It returns a fixed sample extraction JSON and trace plus docs, signup, pricing and free-tier links, without using credits.

Use Haunt's try_demo_extract tool and show me the signup and docs links.

3. Ask for real data

Use Haunt to extract the top five story titles from https://news.ycombinator.com/

For Markdown output:

Use Haunt extract_markdown to turn https://fastapi.tiangolo.com/tutorial/ into clean Markdown.

Reddit, with no Reddit app and no OAuth:

Use Haunt read_reddit to get the top 10 posts from r/webscraping.

Map or crawl a small site:

Use Haunt map_site on https://fastapi.tiangolo.com/ and return the first 100 URLs under /tutorial/.

Use Haunt crawl_site on https://fastapi.tiangolo.com/tutorial/ for up to 10 pages. Extract each page title and main summary.

Related MCP server: Crawl4AI MCP Server

Capability boundaries

Haunt renders pages in a real browser and reads many Cloudflare-protected and bot-walled pages. It does not go past login walls, paywalls, or CAPTCHA human-verification pages, and it does not promise universal extraction. Those return a typed failure signal (login_required, captcha_required, not_found, upstream_fetch_failed) instead of fabricated data, and a failed read is not charged.

Tools

try_demo_extract

No-key activation check. Returns a fixed sample extraction JSON/trace, Haunt's demo endpoint, docs, signup, pricing, MCP info route, and free-tier details. Use this first when a user has installed the MCP server but has not added HAUNT_API_KEY yet.

extract / extract_url

General-purpose extraction from permitted public web pages. extract and extract_url are aliases so hosted MCP docs and local stdio package users can follow the same wording.

Use it for:

• Product names, prices, stock status, reviews

• Competitor pricing pages

• Directories and lead lists

• Job boards

• Research pages

• Supported permitted public pages where you want clean JSON instead of HTML

It accepts optional response_format values: json (default), markdown / md, and raw_html / html.

extract_markdown

Return clean Markdown from a permitted public page. Use this when the agent or workflow wants readable page text for RAG, notes, docs ingestion, or saving as a .md file instead of structured fields.

extract_article

Extract article fields from news, blog, and editorial pages.

Returns title, body text, author, and publish date when available.

extract_metadata

Extract page metadata including title, description, Open Graph tags, Twitter Card tags, canonical URL, and related metadata.

map_site

Discover up to 500 public same-site URLs from robots.txt, sitemaps, and bounded link traversal. Mapping costs no credits and is available on paid plans.

crawl_site

Discover and apply one prompt and optional JSON Schema across up to 20 public same-site pages. Complete pages use normal extraction credits; partial and failed pages cost nothing. Discovery respects robots rules and fetched crawl content is not stored.

read_reddit

Read Reddit posts or a post's comment thread as structured JSON. No Reddit app, no OAuth, no developer account. Accepts a subreddit URL, a post URL, or shorthand like r/webdev. Set comments to true to read a thread.

Costs 1 credit, and a blocked read costs nothing.

company_profile

Turn a company website URL into a structured profile: what the company does, its product, and the contact and social details published on the site. Read live from the site rather than a stale third-party database.

Costs no credits.

github_repo

Return normalised metadata for a public GitHub repository: description, stars, forks, language, licence, topics, and last push.

Costs no credits.

get_usage

Check current plan, monthly credit limit, used credits, reserved credits, and remaining credits. Use this after a live extraction to see what was charged.

Why Haunt

• Reddit posts and comments with no Reddit app, OAuth, or developer account

• Natural-language prompts instead of fragile CSS selectors

• Robots-aware site mapping and bounded multi-page extraction

• Supported fetch paths for JavaScript-heavy pages

• Challenge-aware extraction with machine-readable verification signals (error_code, captcha_provider, requires_human_verification)

• Clean JSON output for agents, databases, and workflows

• Clean Markdown output when the job is page text for agents, RAG, notes, or .md files

• Free tier for testing

Pricing

Credits are not one-to-one requests. Simple public/non-LLM output usually uses 1 credit, normal structured extraction 2, browser-rendered or authenticated extraction 4, and heavy/screenshot extraction 8. Failed, blocked, login/CAPTCHA, provider, and server failures do not burn credits.

Upgrade: https://hauntapi.com/#pricing

Links

• Website: https://hauntapi.com

• Docs: https://hauntapi.com/docs

• Get API key: https://hauntapi.com/?utm_source=github&utm_medium=readme&utm_campaign=mcp_server#signup

• GitHub: https://github.com/Darko893/haunt-mcp-server