Serper (Google Search) MCP server for AI agents

The Serper MCP Server enables Large Language Models (LLMs) to access Google Search results via the Serper API. It provides a variety of search tools for different types of Google searches, allowing AI models to retrieve real-time information from the web.

Installation Options

Using Smithery (Automated Installation)

If you're using Claude Desktop, you can install Serper MCP Server automatically:

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

Using UV (Recommended)

# 1. Make sure you have UV installed (https://docs.astral.sh/uv/)

# 2. Configure your Claude settings (claude_desktop_config.json)

Add the following configuration to your Claude settings:

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

UV will automatically download the MCP server from PyPI.

Using Pip (Project-Specific)

# 1. Add to your requirements.txt
serper-mcp-server

# 2. Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

Add this configuration to your client settings:

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

Using Pip (Global Installation)

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

Then configure your client:

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

Available Search Tools

The server provides access to various Google search functions:

google_search - General web 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-related search
google_search_autocomplete - Search autocompletion
webpage_scrape - Web page content extraction

Debugging

To debug the server using MCP inspector:

# For uvx installations
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uvx serper-mcp-server

# For development or specific installations
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uv run serper-mcp-server -e SERPER_API_KEY=<your_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