shantycrawl-mcp

A lean MCP server for Firecrawl with lazy-loading tool architecture.

Replaces the official firecrawl-mcp (28 tools loaded upfront) with just 5 base tools always visible — advanced tools load only when you enable them via tool_enable. Drastically reduces context consumption in AI coding sessions.

Quick Start

# Run directly with npx — no install needed
FIRECRAWL_API_URL=http://localhost:3002 npx shantycrawl-mcp

Point FIRECRAWL_API_URL at your own Firecrawl instance (Docker, cloud, or self-hosted). Defaults to http://localhost:3002.

Related MCP server: webcrawl-mcp

Tools

Always Available (5)

Lazy-Loaded via tool_enable (23)

tool_enable map adds map to your tool list for the session. Works for any of:

Discovery: map, extract, parse, check_crawl_status

AI Agent: agent, agent_status

Browser Interaction: interact, interact_stop

Feedback: search_feedback, feedback

Research (arXiv): research_search_papers, research_inspect_paper, research_read_paper, research_related_papers, research_search_github

Monitoring: monitor_create, monitor_check, monitor_checks, monitor_delete, monitor_get, monitor_list, monitor_run, monitor_update

Configuration

Claude Desktop

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "firecrawl": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["shantycrawl-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_URL": "http://localhost:3002"
      }
    }
  }
}

OpenCode

{
  "mcp": {
    "firecrawl": {
      "type": "local",
      "command": ["npx", "shantycrawl-mcp"],
      "environment": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_URL": "http://localhost:3002"
      }
    }
  }
}

Environment Variables

Why shantycrawl-mcp?

The official firecrawl-mcp registers all 28 tool schemas upfront in every tools/list response. Each schema carries verbose descriptions and niche parameters. Over a session, this burns significant context tokens.

shantycrawl-mcp solves this with a simple pattern:

1. By default, only 5 essential tools appear — minimal schemas, minimal tokens.

2. Run tool_enable <name> to activate any advanced tool for the session.

3. The server emits notifications/tools/list_changed, and the client sees only what you need.

Development

git clone https://github.com/shanty/shantycrawl-mcp.git
cd shantycrawl-mcp
npm install
npm run build
npm start

Architecture

• Stdio transport — pure @modelcontextprotocol/sdk, no FastMCP

• In-memory state — tracks active tools per session

• HTTP bridge — calls your Firecrawl API via native fetch

• Zero runtime dependencies beyond the MCP SDK

License

MIT