How to use the Brave Search MCP server

Go to brave.com/search/api and click 'Get API Key'. Create an account or sign in. Select the Free plan which provides 2,000 queries per month at no cost. Once your account is set up, navigate to the API Keys section and copy your API key. The key is a long alphanumeric string you will use in your MCP configuration.

1Brave Search API plans:
2- Free: 2,000 queries/month, $0
3- Base: 20,000 queries/month, $5/month
4- Pro: Custom volume pricing

Open your MCP host's configuration file and add a brave-search entry. The API key is passed as the BRAVE_API_KEY environment variable. The command uses npx with the -y flag for automatic installation. This is one of the simplest MCP servers to set up — no database, no Docker, just an API key.

1{
2  "mcpServers": {
3    "brave-search": {
4      "command": "npx",
5      "args": [
6        "-y",
7        "@modelcontextprotocol/server-brave-search"
8      ],
9      "env": {
10        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "your-brave-api-key-here"
11      }
12    }
13  }
14}

Fully quit and reopen Claude Desktop, Cursor, or VS Code. The Brave Search server provides two tools: brave_web_search for general web searches and brave_local_search for finding local businesses and places. Both should appear in your available tools list after restart.

Ask your AI a question that requires up-to-date information beyond its training data. The AI will call the brave_web_search tool, retrieve results from the live web, and synthesize an answer. This is the core value of the search MCP server — grounding AI responses in current facts.

1Example prompts:
2
3"Search the web for the latest release notes for Next.js and summarize the key changes"
4
5"What is the current pricing for Vercel Pro plans?"
6
7"Find the most recent Stack Overflow solutions for 'TypeError: fetch is not a function in Node.js'"

The brave_local_search tool finds local businesses, restaurants, services, and places. It returns results with addresses, phone numbers, ratings, and hours. This is useful when the AI needs to find real-world businesses or services relevant to your project.

1Example prompts:
2
3"Find coworking spaces near downtown San Francisco with their ratings and hours"
4
5"Search for AWS consulting companies in New York City"
6
7"What are the top-rated coffee shops near 94105?"

For VS Code with GitHub Copilot, use the servers key instead of mcpServers. Create a .vscode/mcp.json file in your workspace root with the same command, args, and env values.

1{
2  "servers": {
3    "brave-search": {
4      "command": "npx",
5      "args": [
6        "-y",
7        "@modelcontextprotocol/server-brave-search"
8      ],
9      "env": {
10        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "your-brave-api-key-here"
11      }
12    }
13  }
14}