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

or

# 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"

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]

Cursor & Claude Desktop Installation

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

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

Cursor

• On MacOS: /Users/your-username/.cursor/mcp.json
• On Windows: C:Usersyour-username.cursormcp.json

If everything is working correctly, you should now be able to call the tool from Cursor.

Claude Desktop

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

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”.