FireCrawl MCP server for AI agents

Firecrawl MCP Server is a powerful implementation of the Model Context Protocol that integrates with Firecrawl to provide web scraping capabilities. It allows your AI assistants to access web content through features like scraping, crawling, searching, and extracting structured data from websites.

Installation Options

Quick Start with NPX

The simplest way to run Firecrawl MCP Server is using npx:

env FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=fc-YOUR_API_KEY npx -y firecrawl-mcp

Global Installation

You can install the package globally for easier access:

npm install -g firecrawl-mcp

Running with SSE Local Mode

To use Server-Sent Events (SSE) instead of the default stdio transport:

env SSE_LOCAL=true FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=fc-YOUR_API_KEY npx -y firecrawl-mcp

This will make the server available at http://localhost:3000/sse

IDE Integration

Configuring in Cursor

For Cursor version 0.48.6:

Open Cursor Settings
Go to Features > MCP Servers
Click "+ Add new global MCP server"
Enter the following code:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "firecrawl-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "firecrawl-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "YOUR-API-KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

For Cursor version 0.45.6:

Open Cursor Settings
Go to Features > MCP Servers
Click "+ Add New MCP Server"
Enter the following:
- Name: "firecrawl-mcp" (or your preferred name)
- Type: "command"
- Command: env FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=your-api-key npx -y firecrawl-mcp

Configuring in Windsurf

Add this to your ./codeium/windsurf/model_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-server-firecrawl": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "firecrawl-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

Configuring in VS Code

Add the following to your User Settings (JSON) file in VS Code:

{
  "mcp": {
    "inputs": [
      {
        "type": "promptString",
        "id": "apiKey",
        "description": "Firecrawl API Key",
        "password": true
      }
    ],
    "servers": {
      "firecrawl": {
        "command": "npx",
        "args": ["-y", "firecrawl-mcp"],
        "env": {
          "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "${input:apiKey}"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Configuring in Claude Desktop

Add this to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-server-firecrawl": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "firecrawl-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY_HERE"
      }
    }
  }
}

Configuration

Required Environment Variables

FIRECRAWL_API_KEY: Your Firecrawl API key (get one at https://www.firecrawl.dev/app/api-keys)
FIRECRAWL_API_URL (Optional): Custom API endpoint for self-hosted instances

Optional Configuration

Retry Configuration

# Retry settings
export FIRECRAWL_RETRY_MAX_ATTEMPTS=5
export FIRECRAWL_RETRY_INITIAL_DELAY=2000
export FIRECRAWL_RETRY_MAX_DELAY=30000
export FIRECRAWL_RETRY_BACKOFF_FACTOR=3

Credit Usage Monitoring

# Credit monitoring
export FIRECRAWL_CREDIT_WARNING_THRESHOLD=2000
export FIRECRAWL_CREDIT_CRITICAL_THRESHOLD=500

Available Tools

Tool Selection Guide

For single URL content: Use firecrawl_scrape
For multiple known URLs: Use firecrawl_batch_scrape
To discover URLs on a site: Use firecrawl_map
To search the web: Use firecrawl_search
For structured data extraction: Use firecrawl_extract
For comprehensive site analysis: Use firecrawl_crawl

Scrape Tool

Scrape content from a single URL:

{
  "name": "firecrawl_scrape",
  "arguments": {
    "url": "https://example.com",
    "formats": ["markdown"],
    "onlyMainContent": true,
    "waitFor": 1000,
    "timeout": 30000,
    "mobile": false,
    "includeTags": ["article", "main"],
    "excludeTags": ["nav", "footer"],
    "skipTlsVerification": false
  }
}

Batch Scrape Tool

Scrape multiple URLs efficiently:

{
  "name": "firecrawl_batch_scrape",
  "arguments": {
    "urls": ["https://example1.com", "https://example2.com"],
    "options": {
      "formats": ["markdown"],
      "onlyMainContent": true
    }
  }
}

Map Tool

Discover all URLs on a website:

{
  "name": "firecrawl_map",
  "arguments": {
    "url": "https://example.com"
  }
}

Search Tool

Search the web for information:

{
  "name": "firecrawl_search",
  "arguments": {
    "query": "latest AI research papers 2023",
    "limit": 5,
    "lang": "en",
    "country": "us",
    "scrapeOptions": {
      "formats": ["markdown"],
      "onlyMainContent": true
    }
  }
}

Crawl Tool

Extract content from multiple pages:

{
  "name": "firecrawl_crawl",
  "arguments": {
    "url": "https://example.com/blog/*",
    "maxDepth": 2,
    "limit": 100,
    "allowExternalLinks": false,
    "deduplicateSimilarURLs": true
  }
}

Extract Tool

Extract structured data from web pages:

{
  "name": "firecrawl_extract",
  "arguments": {
    "urls": ["https://example.com/page1"],
    "prompt": "Extract product information including name, price, and description",
    "schema": {
      "type": "object",
      "properties": {
        "name": { "type": "string" },
        "price": { "type": "number" },
        "description": { "type": "string" }
      },
      "required": ["name", "price"]
    }
  }
}

Checking Asynchronous Operations

For batch operations:

{
  "name": "firecrawl_check_batch_status",
  "arguments": {
    "id": "batch_1"
  }
}

For crawl operations:

{
  "name": "firecrawl_check_crawl_status",
  "arguments": {
    "id": "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000"
  }
}

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 "firecrawl-mcp" '{"command":"npx","args":["-y","firecrawl-mcp"],"env":{"FIRECRAWL_API_KEY":"YOUR-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": {
        "firecrawl-mcp": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "firecrawl-mcp"
            ],
            "env": {
                "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "YOUR-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": {
        "firecrawl-mcp": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "firecrawl-mcp"
            ],
            "env": {
                "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "YOUR-API-KEY"
            }
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect