LinkedIn Sales Navigator MCP Server

MCP server that gives AI assistants (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, any MCP client) access to LinkedIn Sales Navigator contact and account search — by driving a real, logged-in browser on your machine and capturing Sales Navigator's own search API responses.

Why this design (and why not cookie-replay)

The common approach — copy your li_at + JSESSIONID cookies and replay them as HTTP requests from a server — gets you logged out repeatedly. LinkedIn scores each session on IP, browser fingerprint, TLS, and the full cookie set; two replayed cookies from a different machine look like a hijacked session, so it invalidates them.

This server does the opposite. It keeps a persistent browser profile you log into once, by hand, and then lets that genuine session do the work:

MCP client (Claude) ──stdio/HTTP──> this server ──drives──> your logged-in Chromium ──> Sales Navigator
                                                    │
                                          captures the JSON the browser
                                          itself receives (page.on "response")

Every request to LinkedIn originates from the real browser: your IP, your fingerprint, your full cookie jar, browser-generated CSRF/track headers, and the session is refreshed by the browser as normal. Nothing is replayed or reconstructed. That is what keeps you signed in.

We never automate the login itself — typing credentials is a strong bot signal. You sign in manually once; the profile persists.

Related MCP server: LinkedIn Sales & Navigator MCP Server

Tools

Both search tools take a full Sales Navigator URL (build the search in the UI, copy it from the address bar) and a pages count (1–10, 25 results each).

Setup

uv sync
uv run patchright install chromium   # one-time browser download
cp .env.example .env                 # optional; defaults are fine on your machine

1. Log in once

uv run linkedin-sales-nav-mcp --login

A browser window opens. Sign into LinkedIn, open Sales Navigator, finish any 2FA/checkpoint. The server detects the signed-in session and saves the profile, then exits.

2. Run the server

uv run linkedin-sales-nav-mcp          # stdio (for Claude Desktop / Code)

Claude Desktop / Claude Code config

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sales-navigator": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["run", "--directory", "/path/to/linkedin-sales-nav-mcp", "linkedin-sales-nav-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

No secrets in the config — the session lives in the browser profile.

Environment variables

Pacing

Pages are not fetched back to back. After each page the server dwells for a random 3–8s before clicking "Next", and every ~5 pages (jittered ±1) it takes a 20–45s break instead. Scroll rhythm is varied too — step count, distance, and the gaps between them.

The reason is cadence, not speed: a page load every two seconds, forever, with no breaks, is a machine signature regardless of how genuine the session is. A full 10-page call therefore takes a couple of minutes, most of it spent deliberately idle. That is working as intended.

Tune with PAGE_DELAY_* / LONG_PAUSE_*, or set PACING_ENABLED=false to restore the old fixed rhythm. Raise TOOL_TIMEOUT alongside any large increase.

This lowers your footprint; it does not make you invisible. Volume is what gets accounts flagged, and no jitter setting changes how many profiles you pulled today. Fetch what you need, spread it out, and use an account you own.

Example agent usage

User: Find heads of engineering at mid-size fintech companies in Berlin.

Agent: builds/obtains a Sales Navigator search URL (paste one, or use a URL-builder skill), then:

search_contacts(
  search_url="https://www.linkedin.com/sales/search/people?query=(...)",
  pages=2
)

→ structured contact records (fullName, title, companyName, location, industry, ...) plus paging.total.

Important honesty notes

• Field mapping is best-effort. We capture LinkedIn's internal sales-api JSON, which is undocumented and changes over time. The normalizer (sales_nav_mcp/normalize.py) pulls the fields that have been stable; if one looks empty, call with include_raw=true and inspect _raw, then extend the mapper. This is the intended maintenance path.

• Pagination selectors for the "Next" control can change; the code tries several fallbacks and stops cleanly if none match. If deep pagination stops early, update _NEXT_SELECTORS in sales_nav_mcp/capture.py.

• Run it on your own machine. A datacenter/cloud IP re-introduces the logout risk this design exists to avoid.

• Scraping LinkedIn is subject to LinkedIn's Terms of Service. Use an account you own, at conservative rates.

Development

uv run pytest          # unit tests for URL validation + JSON normalization

The tests cover the pure logic (no browser/network). The browser path is exercised by running --login then a real search.