Perplexity MCP server

This MCP server provides an interface to the Perplexity API, allowing you to access Perplexity's chat completion capabilities with citations directly from compatible clients like Claude Desktop.

Installation

Claude Desktop Integration

To integrate the Perplexity MCP server with Claude Desktop, you'll need to modify the Claude Desktop configuration file:

macOS location:

~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Windows location:

%APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Add the following configuration to the JSON file:

"mcpServers": {
  "Perplexity": {
    "command": "uvx",
    "args": [
      "mcp-server-perplexity"
    ],
    "env": {
      "PERPLEXITY_API_KEY": "your-perplexity-api-key"
    }
  }
}

Be sure to replace "your-perplexity-api-key" with your actual Perplexity API key.

Usage

Available Tools

The MCP server provides the following tool:

• ask_perplexity: This tool enables you to request chat completions with citations from Perplexity directly through the Claude interface.

Using with Claude Desktop

After installation, you can access the Perplexity capabilities directly from Claude Desktop. The server will handle communication between Claude and the Perplexity API.

Known Limitations

• The Claude Desktop client may timeout if Perplexity processing takes too long
• This limitation might be resolved in future versions of Claude Desktop if they implement support for long-running operations and progress reporting
• Implementation updates to handle these features will be made if they become available

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 "Perplexity" '{"command":"uvx","args":["mcp-server-perplexity"],"env":{"PERPLEXITY_API_KEY":"your-perplexity-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": {
        "Perplexity": {
            "command": "uvx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-server-perplexity"
            ],
            "env": {
                "PERPLEXITY_API_KEY": "your-perplexity-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": {
        "Perplexity": {
            "command": "uvx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-server-perplexity"
            ],
            "env": {
                "PERPLEXITY_API_KEY": "your-perplexity-api-key"
            }
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect