Deep Research MCP server

Deep Research MCP Server is an agent-based tool that provides web search and advanced research capabilities, including document analysis, image description, and YouTube transcript retrieval. It runs as a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server and is based on HuggingFace's smolagents framework.

Requirements

• Python 3.11 or higher
• uv package manager
• API keys:
  • OpenAI API key
  • HuggingFace token
  • SerpAPI key (obtain from Serper.dev)

Installation

Clone the repository and set up the environment:

git clone https://github.com/Hajime-Y/deep-research-mcp.git
cd deep-research-mcp

Create a virtual environment and install dependencies:

uv venv
source .venv/bin/activate # For Linux or Mac
# .venv\Scripts\activate # For Windows
uv sync

Configuration

Create a .env file in the project root directory with your API keys:

OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_api_key
HF_TOKEN=your_huggingface_token
SERPER_API_KEY=your_serper_api_key

Running the Server

Start the MCP server with:

uv run deep_research.py

Docker Usage

You can also run the server in a Docker container:

# Build the Docker image
docker build -t deep-research-mcp .

# Run with required API keys
docker run -p 8080:8080 \
  -e OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_api_key \
  -e HF_TOKEN=your_huggingface_token \
  -e SERPER_API_KEY=your_serper_api_key \
  deep-research-mcp

Integrating with MCP Clients

Claude Desktop

Add this configuration to your Claude Desktop config file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "deep-research-mcp": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run", 
        "-i", 
        "--rm", 
        "-e", "OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_api_key",
        "-e", "HF_TOKEN=your_huggingface_token", 
        "-e", "SERPER_API_KEY=your_serper_api_key",
        "deep-research-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Cursor IDE

For Cursor IDE, use the same configuration format:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "deep-research-mcp": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run", 
        "-i", 
        "--rm", 
        "-e", "OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_api_key",
        "-e", "HF_TOKEN=your_huggingface_token", 
        "-e", "SERPER_API_KEY=your_serper_api_key",
        "deep-research-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Using with Remote MCP Server

If running the server remotely:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "deep-research-mcp": {
      "url": "http://your-server-address:8080/mcp",
      "type": "sse"
    }
  }
}

Features

The Deep Research MCP server provides these capabilities:

• Web search and information gathering
• PDF and document analysis
• Image analysis and description
• YouTube transcript retrieval
• Archive site search

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 "deep-research-mcp" '{"command":"docker","args":["run","-i","--rm","-e","OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_api_key","-e","HF_TOKEN=your_huggingface_token","-e","SERPER_API_KEY=your_serper_api_key","deep-research-mcp"]}'

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": {
        "deep-research-mcp": {
            "command": "docker",
            "args": [
                "run",
                "-i",
                "--rm",
                "-e",
                "OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_api_key",
                "-e",
                "HF_TOKEN=your_huggingface_token",
                "-e",
                "SERPER_API_KEY=your_serper_api_key",
                "deep-research-mcp"
            ]
        }
    }
}

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": {
        "deep-research-mcp": {
            "command": "docker",
            "args": [
                "run",
                "-i",
                "--rm",
                "-e",
                "OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_api_key",
                "-e",
                "HF_TOKEN=your_huggingface_token",
                "-e",
                "SERPER_API_KEY=your_serper_api_key",
                "deep-research-mcp"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect