perplexity-mcp MCP server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides web search functionality using Perplexity AI's API. Works with the Anthropic Claude desktop client.

Example

Let's you use prompts like, "Search the web to find out what's new at Anthropic in the past week."

Glama Scores

Components

Prompts

The server provides a single prompt:

perplexity_search_web: Search the web using Perplexity AI
- Required "query" argument for the search query
- Optional "recency" argument to filter results by time period:
  - 'day': last 24 hours
  - 'week': last 7 days
  - 'month': last 30 days (default)
  - 'year': last 365 days
- Uses Perplexity's API to perform web searches

Tools

The server implements one tool:

perplexity_search_web: Search the web using Perplexity AI
- Takes "query" as a required string argument
- Optional "recency" parameter to filter results (day/week/month/year)
- Returns search results from Perplexity's API

Installation

Installing via Smithery

To install Perplexity MCP for Claude Desktop automatically via Smithery:

npx -y @smithery/cli install perplexity-mcp --client claude

Requires UV (Fast Python package and project manager)

If uv isn't installed.

# Using Homebrew on macOS
brew install uv

# On macOS and Linux.
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# On Windows.
powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"

Next, install the MCP server

# Install from PyPi
uv pip install perplexity-mcp

# Install from source
uv pip install git+https://github.com/jsonallen/perplexity-mcp.git

Environment Variables

The following environment variable is required in your claude_desktop_config.json. You can obtain an API key from Perplexity

PERPLEXITY_API_KEY: Your Perplexity AI API key

Optional environment variables:

PERPLEXITY_MODEL: The Perplexity model to use (defaults to "sonar" if not specified)Available models:
- sonar-deep-research: 128k context - Enhanced research capabilities
- sonar-reasoning-pro: 128k context - Advanced reasoning with professional focus
- sonar-reasoning: 128k context - Enhanced reasoning capabilities
- sonar-pro: 200k context - Professional grade model
- sonar: 128k context - Default model
- r1-1776: 128k context - Alternative architecture

And updated list of models is avaiable (here)[https://docs.perplexity.ai/guides/model-cards]

Claude Desktop

Add this tool as a mcp server by editing the Claude config file.

On MacOS: ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json On Windows: %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

  "perplexity-mcp": {
    "env": {
      "PERPLEXITY_API_KEY": "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX",
      "PERPLEXITY_MODEL": "sonar"
    },
    "command": "uv",
    "args": [
      "run",
      "perplexity-mcp"
    ]
  }

To verify the server is working. Open the Claude client and use a prompt like "search the web for news about openai in the past week". You should see an alert box open to confirm tool usage. Click "Allow for this chat".

Cursor Installation

You can also use perplexity-mcp as MCP server in Cursor.

Since there no way to set an the the PERPLEXITY_API_KEY in Cursor, you'll have to create a simple wrapper script to set the environment variable.

Example wrapper script:

#!/bin/bash

# Set the your Perplexity API key
export PERPLEXITY_API_KEY="pplx-XXXXXXXXXXXX"

# Set the Perplexity model (optional, defaults to "sonar" if not set)
export PERPLEXITY_MODEL="sonar-pro"

# Run the command
uv run perplexity-mcp

Once you've completed your script, navigate to the MCP settings in Cursor and Add MCP Server. Set the server name to perplexity-mcp and the type to command. For the command, you want to specify the path of the wrapper script you just created.

If everything is working correctly, you should now be able to call the tool from Cursor. <img width="800" alt="mcp_screenshot" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/d9adef45-b53c-4396-9bd4-dd798a742b48" width=600>