📌Overview

Purpose: To provide web search functionality through a simple MCP (Model Context Protocol) server using the Perplexity API for AI assistants.

Overview: The Perplexity Web Search MCP Server offers an integration that enables MCP-compatible AI assistants, such as Claude, to perform real-time web searches. It simplifies accessing updated information and robust search results via the Perplexity API.

Key Features:

Powerful Web Search: Utilizes Perplexity's advanced search capabilities to deliver informative results.
Comprehensive Results: Provides detailed search outcomes, complete with sources and citations for verification.
Result Filtering: Offers options to filter search results by different time frames (day, week, month, year) for more relevant information.
Prompt Template: Includes a ready-to-use prompt template specifically designed for web search queries.
API Key Configuration: Supports seamless configuration of the Perplexity API key via environment variables or a .env file.

Perplexity Web Search MCP Server

A simple MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that provides web search functionality using the Perplexity API. This server allows Claude or other MCP-compatible AI assistants to search the web and get up-to-date information.

Features

Search the web with Perplexity's powerful search capabilities
Get comprehensive search results with sources and citations
Filter results by time period (day, week, month, year)
Includes a ready-to-use prompt template for web searches
Supports loading API key from environment variables or .env file

Installation

Clone this repository
Install dependencies:
```
pip install -e .
```
or
```
uv pip install -e .
```

Configuration

Set the PERPLEXITY_API_KEY environment variable with your Perplexity API key:

export PERPLEXITY_API_KEY="your-api-key-here"

Alternatively, create a .env file in the project root:

PERPLEXITY_API_KEY=your-api-key-here

To get a Perplexity API key:

Visit https://www.perplexity.ai/settings/api
Create an account if you don't have one
Generate an API key

Usage

Running the server

python server.py

Testing the server

Test server functionality without running the full MCP server:

python test_server.py "your search query here" --recency month

Options for --recency: day, week, month (default), year

Using with Claude Desktop

Edit your Claude Desktop configuration file:
- On macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
- On Windows: %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Add the configuration:

{
  "perplexity-mcp": {
    "env": {
      "PERPLEXITY_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here"
    },
    "command": "python",
    "args": [
      "/path/to/server.py"
    ]
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop

Example Prompts for Claude

Search the web for the latest news about artificial intelligence
Use Perplexity to find information about climate change published in the past week
Search for recent research papers on quantum computing from the past month

API Reference

Tool: `search_web(query: str, recency: str = "month") -> str`

Search the web using Perplexity API and return results.

Parameters:

query: The search query string
recency: Filter results by time period - 'day', 'week', 'month' (default), or 'year'

Returns:
A comprehensive text response containing:

A detailed summary of the search results
Key facts and information found
Sources with URLs for verification
Any conflicting information if present

Prompt: `web_search_prompt(query: str, recency: str = "month") -> str`

Creates a prompt template for searching the web with Perplexity.