Serper (Google Search) MCP server

The Serper MCP Server provides Google Search functionality to Language Learning Models (LLMs) via the Serper API, allowing AI models to access real-time search results and web information through the Model Context Protocol.

Installation Options

Via Smithery

For automatic installation with Claude Desktop:

npx -y @smithery/cli install @garylab/serper-mcp-server --client claude

Using uv (Recommended)

1. Ensure you have uv installed on your system

2. Configure your MCP client or Claude settings by editing claude_desktop_config.json:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "serper": {
            "command": "uvx",
            "args": ["serper-mcp-server"],
            "env": {
                "SERPER_API_KEY": "<Your Serper API key>"
            }
        }
    }
}

Using pip for a Project

1. Add the server to your requirements.txt:

serper-mcp-server

2. Install dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Add configuration to your client:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "serper": {
            "command": "python3",
            "args": ["-m", "serper_mcp_server"],
            "env": {
                "SERPER_API_KEY": "<Your Serper API key>"
            }
        }
    }
}

Using pip Globally

1. Install the package:

pip install serper-mcp-server
# or
pip3 install serper-mcp-server

2. Configure your MCP client:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "serper": {
            "command": "python3",
            "args": ["serper-mcp-server"],
            "env": {
                "SERPER_API_KEY": "<Your Serper API key>"
            }
        }
    }
}

Available Tools

The server provides several search-related tools:

• google_search - Basic Google search
• google_search_images - Image search
• google_search_videos - Video search
• google_search_places - Places search
• google_search_maps - Maps search
• google_search_reviews - Reviews search
• google_search_news - News search
• google_search_shopping - Shopping search
• google_search_lens - Google Lens search
• google_search_scholar - Google Scholar search
• google_search_parents - Parent search
• google_search_autocomplete - Search autocomplete
• webpage_scrape - Web scraping functionality

Debugging

You can debug the server using the MCP inspector:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uvx serper-mcp-server

For specific installations:

cd path/to/servers/src/serper
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uv run serper-mcp-server -e SERPER_API_KEY=<the key>

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "serper" '{"command":"python3","args":["-m","serper_mcp_server"],"env":{"SERPER_API_KEY":"<Your Serper API key>"}}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "serper": {
            "command": "python3",
            "args": [
                "-m",
                "serper_mcp_server"
            ],
            "env": {
                "SERPER_API_KEY": "<Your Serper API key>"
            }
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "serper": {
            "command": "python3",
            "args": [
                "-m",
                "serper_mcp_server"
            ],
            "env": {
                "SERPER_API_KEY": "<Your Serper API key>"
            }
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect