yandex-search-mcp

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  🔍 Yandex Search MCP - Unofficial Community Project        │
│  ⚡ Powered by Playwright + TypeScript + MCP Framework       │
│  🚀 Enhanced with Content Extraction & LLM Context          │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

⚠️ IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER

This is an unofficial community project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to:

• Yandex LLC (the search engine provider)

• Anthropic (creators of Claude and MCP)

• Google (Playwright maintainers)

This tool uses browser automation to access Yandex search. Users are responsible for:

• Complying with Yandex's Terms of Service

• Respecting rate limits and bot policies

• Using their own authentication cookies

• Not using this tool for malicious purposes

📋 Table of Contents

• ✨ Features

• 🚀 Quick Start

• 📦 Installation

• 🍪 Cookie Setup

• ⚙️ Configuration

• 🎯 Usage

• 🔧 Tools

• 🏗️ Architecture

• 🛠️ Troubleshooting

• 🤝 Contributing

• 📄 License

Related MCP server: MCP Server for Google Search

✨ Features

Core Capabilities

Enhanced Features (v2.0)

🚀 Quick Start

# 1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/bpawnzZ/yandex-search-mcp.git
cd yandex-search-mcp

# 2. Install dependencies
npm install

# 3. Build the project
npm run build

# 4. Configure cookies (see Cookie Setup section)
# 5. Add to MCP client configuration
# 6. Start searching! 🎉

📦 Installation

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+

• npm or yarn

• A Yandex account (for cookies)

• Cookie-Editor browser extension (or similar)

Option 1: Clone and Build

git clone https://github.com/bpawnzZ/yandex-search-mcp.git
cd yandex-search-mcp
npm install
npm run build

Option 2: Use with npx (after publishing)

npx yandex-search-mcp

🍪 Cookie Setup

Why Cookies?

Yandex implements CAPTCHA challenges for automated requests. Using authenticated cookies allows the tool to bypass these challenges and perform searches seamlessly.

Getting Your Cookies

1. Install Cookie-Editor Extension:

   • Chrome: Cookie-Editor Extension

   • Firefox: Cookie-Editor Add-on

2. Log in to Yandex:

   • Go to yandex.com

   • Log in to your Yandex account (or create one)

   • Perform a search to ensure cookies are set

3. Export Cookies:

   • Click the Cookie-Editor icon in your browser

   • Click the "Export" button (or JSON format)

   • Copy the JSON array

4. Save Cookies:

   • Paste the JSON into cookies/yandex-cookies.json

   • Ensure the file is valid JSON

Sample Cookie File Structure

[
  {
    "domain": ".yandex.com",
    "expirationDate": 1800000000.000000,
    "hostOnly": false,
    "httpOnly": true,
    "name": "Session_id",
    "path": "/",
    "sameSite": "no_restriction",
    "secure": true,
    "session": false,
    "storeId": null,
    "value": "YOUR_SESSION_ID_HERE"
  }
]

Important: Keep your cookies secure and don't commit them to public repositories!

⚙️ Configuration

MCP Client Configuration

Claude Desktop

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "yandex-search": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/yandex-search-mcp/dist/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "NODE_ENV": "production"
      }
    }
  }
}

Cline (VS Code Extension)

Add to ~/.kilocode/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "yandex-search": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/home/insomnia/git/yandex-search-mcp/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Environment Variables

# Optional configuration
MAX_PAGES_PER_QUERY=5        # Default: 3
MAX_TOKENS_PER_PAGE=4000     # Default: 3000
CACHE_TTL_HOURS=24          # Default: 24

🎯 Usage

Basic Search

// Simple search - returns titles, URLs, snippets
{
  "tool": "yandex_search",
  "params": {
    "query": "artificial intelligence",
    "numResults": 10,
    "region": "com",
    "language": "en"
  }
}

Enhanced Search with Content Extraction

// Enhanced search - fetches and analyzes page content
{
  "tool": "yandex_search_enhanced",
  "params": {
    "query": "artificial intelligence benefits",
    "numResults": 5,
    "region": "com",
    "fetch_content": true,
    "max_pages": 3,
    "max_tokens_per_page": 3000,
    "analysis_level": "detailed",
    "context_format": "synthesized"
  }
}

Output Formats

The enhanced tool supports multiple output formats:

Example Response (Synthesized)

{
  "summary": "Based on 3 sources (12,456 words analyzed), here is what we found about \"artificial intelligence benefits\":",
  "key_findings": [
    {
      "source": "example.com",
      "finding": "AI increases productivity by 40% in manufacturing",
      "confidence": "high"
    }
  ],
  "synthesized_knowledge": "Synthesis of findings...",
  "source_references": [
    {
      "url": "https://example.com/ai-benefits",
      "title": "AI Benefits in 2026",
      "key_points": ["Increased productivity", "Cost reduction"],
      "relevance_note": "Relevance score: 85.3/100"
    }
  ],
  "metadata": {
    "query": "artificial intelligence benefits",
    "total_results": 500,
    "pages_fetched": 3,
    "successful_extractions": 3,
    "total_time_ms": 28500
  }
}

🔧 Tools

yandex_search (Basic)

Simple search tool returning titles, URLs, and snippets.

Parameters:

• query (string, required): Search query

• numResults (number, optional): Number of results (default: 10, max: 50)

• region (string, optional): Region code (default: "com")

• language (string, optional): Language code (default: "en")

• safeSearch (boolean, optional): Enable safe search (default: true)

yandex_search_enhanced (Advanced)

Full-featured search with content extraction and analysis.

Parameters:

• All basic parameters plus:

• fetch_content (boolean, optional): Fetch page content (default: true)

• max_pages (number, optional): Max pages to fetch (default: 3, max: 10)

• max_tokens_per_page (number, optional): Token limit per page (default: 3000)

• analysis_level (enum, optional): "basic" | "detailed" | "comprehensive"

• context_format (enum, optional): "raw" | "summarized" | "synthesized" | "qa_ready"

🏗️ Architecture

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    Yandex Search MCP                          │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                               │
│  ┌──────────────┐     ┌──────────────────────────────────┐   │
│  │ Basic Search │     │        Enhanced Pipeline         │   │
│  │              │     │                                  │   │
│  │ • Search     │     │  ┌─────────────┐  ┌──────────┐   │   │
│  │ • Snippets   │     │  │   Browser   │→ │  Search  │   │   │
│  │ • URLs       │     │  │   Manager   │  │          │   │   │
│  └──────────────┘     │  └─────────────┘  └────┬─────┘   │   │
│                       │                        │         │   │
│                       │  ┌─────────────┐  ┌────▼─────┐   │   │
│                       │  │  Content    │  │ Extract  │   │   │
│                       │  │  Extractor  │←─┤ Content  │   │   │
│                       │  └─────────────┘  └────┬─────┘   │   │
│                       │                        │         │   │
│                       │  ┌─────────────┐  ┌────▼─────┐   │   │
│                       │  │  Relevance  │  │   Cache  │   │   │
│                       │  │   Scorer    │←─┤   (LRU)  │   │   │
│                       │  └─────────────┘  └──────────┘   │   │
│                       │                        │         │   │
│                       │  ┌──────────────────┐  │         │   │
│                       │  │  LLM Context     │←─┘         │   │
│                       │  │  Formatter       │            │   │
│                       │  └──────────────────┘            │   │
│                       │                        │         │   │
│                       │  ┌──────────────────┐  │         │   │
│                       │  │  Structured      │←─┘         │   │
│                       │  │  JSON Output     │            │   │
│                       │  └──────────────────┘            │   │
│                       └──────────────────────────────────┘   │
│                                                               │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Key Components

1. BrowserManager: Singleton managing Playwright browser with stealth

2. ContentExtractor: Fetches and extracts meaningful content from pages

3. RelevanceScorer: Scores and ranks content by query relevance

4. LLMContextFormatter: Formats output for optimal LLM consumption

5. ContentCache: LRU cache with domain-specific TTLs

🛠️ Troubleshooting

CAPTCHA Detected

Symptom: Results contain error: 'CAPTCHA detected'

Solutions (in order of effectiveness):

1. Use Yandex Search API (Recommended - 100% reliable):

   export YANDEX_SEARCH_API_KEY="your_api_key"
   export YANDEX_SEARCH_USER_ID="your_user_id"

   See Yandex Search API Setup below.

2. Update Cookies: Re-export fresh cookies from your browser

3. Use Residential Proxy: Datacenter IPs are often flagged

4. Enable FlareSolverr: Add FLARESOLVERR_URL environment variable

Yandex Search API Setup

The most reliable way to avoid CAPTCHA is using the official Yandex Search API:

1. Get API Credentials:

   • Visit Yandex Cloud Search API

   • Create a service account

   • Generate an API key with yandex.search-api.execute scope

   • Note your User ID

2. Configure MCP:

   {
     "mcpServers": {
       "yandex-search": {
         "command": "node",
         "args": ["/path/to/yandex-search-mcp/dist/index.js"],
         "env": {
           "YANDEX_SEARCH_API_KEY": "your_api_key_here",
           "YANDEX_SEARCH_USER_ID": "your_user_id_here"
         }
       }
     }
   }

3. Benefits:

   • No CAPTCHA challenges

   • 30,000 free requests per day

   • Faster response times

   • More reliable results

Cookie Loading Errors

Symptom: sameSite: expected one of (Strict|Lax|None)

Solution: This is automatically handled by the cookie normalization in BrowserManager.

Content Not Extracting

Symptom: Empty or minimal content from pages

Possible Causes:

• Heavy JavaScript (increase wait time)

• Login/paywall required

• Anti-scraping measures

High Memory Usage

Solution:

• Reduce max_pages parameter

• Lower max_tokens_per_page

• Cache will automatically evict old entries

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please:

1. Fork the repository

2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)

3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')

4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)

5. Open a Pull Request

Development Guidelines

• Follow TypeScript best practices

• Add comments for complex logic

• Update documentation for new features

• Test thoroughly before submitting

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

🙏 Acknowledgments

• MCP Framework - The framework powering this tool

• Playwright - Browser automation

• Yandex - Search engine (unofficial use)

📞 Support

• Issues: GitHub Issues

• Discussions: GitHub Discussions

Made with ⚡ by the community, for the community.

This is an unofficial tool. Please use responsibly and respect Yandex's Terms of Service.