# Perplexityai MCP Server (MCP server)

> Perplexityai MCP Server is an MCP server that adds search and knowledge tools to AI assistants such as Claude Desktop, Claude Code and Cursor. The official MCP server implementation for the Perplexity API Platform. It has 2,589 GitHub stars, is released under the MIT license and runs locally with npx -y @perplexity-ai/mcp-server.

The official MCP server implementation for the Perplexity API Platform, providing AI assistants with real-time web search, reasoning, and research capabilities through the Agent API and the Search API.

## Key facts

| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Repository | https://github.com/perplexityai/modelcontextprotocol |
| GitHub stars | 2,589 |
| License | MIT |
| Language | TypeScript |
| Transport | stdio |
| Packages | npm: @perplexity-ai/mcp-server |
| Remote URL | none |
| Needs API key | yes |
| Official | yes |
| Works with | Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code |
| Category | AI & search |
| Latest release | none |
| Last commit | Oct 21, 2026 |

## Install

### Claude Desktop (claude_desktop_config.json)

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "perplexityai-mcp-server": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@perplexity-ai/mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "PERPLEXITY_API_KEY": "your-value"
      }
    }
  }
}
```

Settings > Developer > Edit Config. macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/, Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\. Restart Claude Desktop afterwards.

### Claude Code

```sh
claude mcp add --env PERPLEXITY_API_KEY=your-value --transport stdio perplexityai-mcp-server -- npx -y @perplexity-ai/mcp-server
```

### Cursor (.cursor/mcp.json)

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "perplexityai-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@perplexity-ai/mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "PERPLEXITY_API_KEY": "your-value"
      }
    }
  }
}
```

Project file; use ~/.cursor/mcp.json to enable it in every project.

### VS Code (.vscode/mcp.json)

```json
{
  "inputs": [
    {
      "type": "promptString",
      "id": "perplexity_api_key",
      "description": "PERPLEXITY_API_KEY",
      "password": true
    }
  ],
  "servers": {
    "perplexityai-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@perplexity-ai/mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "PERPLEXITY_API_KEY": "${input:perplexity_api_key}"
      }
    }
  }
}
```

Config formats checked against the official docs on 2026-10-07.

## Environment variables

- `PERPLEXITY_API_KEY` (secret): Shown in the README's example configuration.

## Tools

- `medium`: 4000
- `high`: 8000

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