Home / MCP / Perplexity MCP Server

Perplexity MCP Server

Provides real-time web search, reasoning, and research through Perplexity APIs for MCP clients.

typescript

1.8kstars

View on GitHub

Installation

Add the following to your MCP client configuration file.

Configuration

View docs

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "perplexity_http": {
            "url": "http://localhost:8080/mcp"
        }
    }
}

The Perplexity MCP Server connects clients to the Perplexity API Platform, giving you real-time web search, reasoning, and research capabilities through specialized tools. It enables a scalable checkout of search results, conversational AI, and in-depth analysis within your MCP client workflows.

How to use

You use the Perplexity MCP Server by running it in your MCP client environment and connecting to the server through either HTTP or stdio depending on your setup. With the server running, you can access tools that perform direct web search, quick questions, deep research, and advanced reasoning. Your client sends requests to the MCP server, which then uses Perplexity models and the Search API to fetch results, reason about the problem, and return structured responses for your applications.

How to install

Prerequisites: you will need Node.js and npm installed on your machine, or a container environment if you prefer Docker. You should also have an API key from Perplexity to access the services.

# Example: start the HTTP server using Docker
docker build -t perplexity-mcp-server .
docker run -p 8080:8080 -e PERPLEXITY_API_KEY=your_key_here perplexity-mcp-server

# The server will be available at http://localhost:8080/mcp

Additional setup for local development

If you prefer running the server locally without Docker, you can install dependencies and start the HTTP server directly with Node.js. Ensure you provide your Perplexity API key.

npm install
npm run build
npm run start:http

# Connect your MCP client to http://localhost:8080/mcp

Available tools

perplexity_search

Direct web search using the Perplexity Search API; returns ranked results with metadata.

perplexity_ask

General-purpose conversational AI with real-time web search using sonar-pro model.

perplexity_research

Deep, comprehensive research using sonar-deep-research for thorough analysis.

perplexity_reason

Advanced reasoning and problem-solving using sonar-reasoning-pro for complex tasks.