MCP server
Brave Search MCP server
Brave's official MCP server gives AI live web, news, image, video and local search from Brave's own independent index.
- Official server
- Search and web
At a glance
- Maintained by
- Brave
- Tools exposed
- 8 listed below
- Reviewed
- September 24, 2026
Why it matters
What it does and why it matters
An assistant without search only knows what it learned in training. The Brave Search MCP server lets it look things up: general web results, news, images, videos and local places, plus a summarizer and a tool that returns content prepared for AI use. Brave runs its own search index rather than reselling another engine's results.
For business teams, live search turns an assistant into a research helper. It can check a company before a sales call, find recent news about a supplier or look up a regulation that changed last month.
The server replaces the older MCP reference server for Brave Search, which is now archived. It needs a Brave Search API key, and usage is billed by Brave's API plans. All tools are read-only, so the main risks are cost and the quality of what the assistant does with the results.
We ask assistants to cite the pages they used for every answer, so a person can check the facts before acting on them. For research at scale, we also cache results to avoid paying for the same search twice.
Use cases
Best business use cases
News monitoring
Local search
Fact checks
Tools
Available tools
Tool names as published by the maintainer at review time. Versions change, so check the repository for the current list.
Read and write: Read-only web search; no write actions.
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brave_web_searchWeb search with rich results and filters.
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brave_local_searchFinds local businesses and places.
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brave_news_searchFinds current news articles.
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brave_image_searchFinds images with metadata.
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brave_video_searchFinds videos with metadata.
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brave_summarizerSummarizes web search results.
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brave_place_searchFinds points of interest in an area.
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brave_llm_contextReturns pre-extracted web content for grounding and RAG.
Workflows
Example workflows
Pre-call company brief
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1
A rep asks for a brief on a prospect.
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2
The assistant searches the web and news.
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3
It summarizes what the company does and recent events.
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4
It lists sources for each point.
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5
The rep checks the key facts before the call.
Weekly supplier news
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1
A list of key suppliers is set up.
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2
Each week the assistant runs news searches.
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3
It flags anything about delays, recalls or ownership changes.
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4
It sends a short digest with links.
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5
Purchasing reviews and follows up.
Prompts
Example prompts
“Give me a one-page brief on this company, with sources, before my call tomorrow.”
“Find news from the last 30 days about our three biggest suppliers.”
“List coffee shops within two kilometers of our new office.”
Setup
Installation and configuration
Examples for Claude Desktop and Claude Code. Replace the placeholder values with your own keys, and store secrets outside version control.
Claude Desktop: claude_desktop_config.json
{
"mcpServers": {
"brave-search": {
"command": "docker",
"args": [
"run",
"-i",
"--rm",
"-e",
"BRAVE_API_KEY",
"docker.io/mcp/brave-search"
],
"env": {
"BRAVE_API_KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY_HERE"
}
}
}
}Claude Code: terminal
claude mcp add brave-search -e BRAVE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY" -- npx -y @brave/brave-search-mcp-server- Local server: stdio (default) or local http. npm: @brave/brave-search-mcp-server. Docker: docker.io/mcp/brave-search.
- Needs: BRAVE_API_KEY (Brave Search API key) or BRAVE_API_KEY_FILE.
Security
Security considerations
-
Untrusted content
Web pages can contain text written to mislead an AI. Treat results as data, not instructions.
-
Protect the API key
Store the key outside version control and rotate it if it leaks.
-
Watch usage
Searches are billed or rate limited. Set limits and monitor use.
-
Check sources
Ask for sources and check a sample of answers by hand.
Related servers
Servers that pair well with it
Exa
Exa's official hosted MCP server gives AI search built for AI use, page fetching, advanced filters and a research agent.
Tavily
Tavily's official MCP server gives AI web search, content extraction, site mapping and crawling, all built for AI use.
Fetch
The MCP project's reference Fetch server lets AI download a web page and read it as clean text or markdown.
Keep exploring
Solutions and services that use it
Related services
View all related services- MCP integration Connect AI assistants to your CRM, files, databases and tools through Model Context Protocol servers, with safe permissions.
- AI agents AI that takes actions in your systems, such as qualifying leads or processing requests, with people checking the results.
- AI Product Development AI agents, knowledge assistants, copilots and document automation built into the way your team already works.
Solutions
View all solutions- AI sales research agent Short, sourced briefings on each prospect before a call, drafted by an AI agent from public information and your CRM.
- Price monitoring Collect competitor prices automatically, match them to your products and alert you when something changes.
- Compliance tracking Track filing deadlines, licenses and obligations in one place, with reminders and AI summaries of relevant rule changes.
- AI lead qualification Score, research and route every new inquiry so your team talks to the best leads first.
- Internal help desk assistant An assistant in Slack or Teams that answers policy and how-to questions from your handbooks and opens tickets when needed.
- Knowledge assistant (RAG) Ask a question in plain words and get an answer from your own documents, with links to the sources.
Industries
View all industriesGuides and articles
View all guides and articles- What are AI agents and how do businesses use them? What AI agents are, real business uses, the controls they need and how to start with one safely.
- What is the Model Context Protocol? A business guide to MCP: what it is, how MCP servers work, who supports it and how to start using it.
- How to build an AI workflow with MCP servers Plan, connect and test an AI workflow that uses MCP servers, from a single task to a reliable process.
- AI chatbot vs AI agent What separates a chatbot that answers from an agent that acts, and when you need each.
AI models
View all ai models- Claude Fable 5.1 The top tier of the Claude family, for the most demanding reasoning and long-horizon agent work, priced above Opus.
- Claude Opus 5.5 Anthropic's recommended starting point for most serious work: long-running agentic coding and knowledge work, with a 1M token context window.
- GPT-6 Astra OpenAI's most capable model, built for the hardest end-to-end work: complex reasoning, coding, computer use and research.
- DeepSeek V4 Pro DeepSeek's model for demanding reasoning and agent work, with thinking effort levels, tool calling, JSON output and a 1 million token window.
- Grok 4.7 xAI's current flagship for coding, agent tasks and knowledge work, with image input, tool calling, structured outputs, reasoning effort levels and a 500K window.
- Reasoning Models that think through multi-step problems before answering: analysis, planning, math, complex documents and agent work.
Glossary terms
View all glossary terms- AI agent An AI agent is software that uses a language model to plan steps, call tools and act toward a goal, instead of only answering one question.
- RAG RAG, or retrieval-augmented generation, is a method where an AI system first finds relevant passages in your documents, then answers using only those passages.
- MCP server An MCP server is a program or hosted service that exposes a system's data and actions as tools that AI assistants can use through the Model Context Protocol.
- Model Context Protocol The Model Context Protocol, or MCP, is an open standard for connecting AI assistants to external tools and data in a consistent way.
- Tool calling Tool calling is when an AI model asks the application to run a tool, such as a search or database lookup, and then uses the result in its answer.
- Chatbot A chatbot is software that holds a conversation with people through text or voice, answering questions or completing simple tasks.
FAQ
Questions people ask us
Have a question that is not here? Ask us directly.
Yes. It is maintained by Brave and replaces the archived MCP reference server.
Yes, a Brave Search API key. Usage follows Brave's API plans.
No. All tools are read-only searches.