Brave MCP Server

DeepSearch MCP Server with Brave Search API and Puppeteer content extraction

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What is the Brave MCP server?

Brave MCP server exists for a simple reason — assistants are far more useful when they can act on Brave directly instead of describing what you should do. DeepSearch MCP Server with Brave Search API and Puppeteer content extraction.

What you get

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that combines Brave Search with Puppeteer-powered content extraction for deep research capabilities. This server allows AI assistants to perform comprehensive web searches by not only retrieving search results but also visiting the pages to extract full content and explore linked pages.

  • Deep Search — Go beyond search results to extract complete page content
  • Configurable Depth — Specify how many levels of links to follow from initial results
  • Content Extraction — Intelligently identify and extract main content from pages
  • Metadata Extraction — Get titles, descriptions, and structured content
  • Debug Mode — Configurable logging for troubleshooting
  • Headless Mode Toggle — Run browser in visible or headless mode

Setting it up

Installation goes through your MCP client rather than a global install: point it at @suthio/brave-deep-research-mcp on npm and it is fetched when the client starts. The copy-paste blocks for Claude Desktop, Claude Code and Cursor are further down this page.

Configuration and credentials

You will need 2 environment variables: BRAVE_API_KEY, PUPPETEER_HEADLESS. The server will not start without them, which is usually why the tools fail to appear on a first run. Keep credentials in your client's env block or a secrets manager rather than in a file you might commit.

Before you rely on it

  • It runs with your machine's permissions. That is convenient and also the reason to think about what you point it at before you approve a tool call.
  • Missing credentials fail quietly in some clients — if no tools show up, check the environment block first.
  • MCP clients confirm each tool call by default. Leave that on until you have watched what the brave mcp server does with a few real requests.

Choosing this one

Among the browser automation options, the useful question is rarely "what can it do" but "what does it cost you to run" — permissions, credentials, and how much of your context its toolset consumes. It is maintained by suthio; worth a glance at recent repository activity before you build anything load-bearing on it.

SyncDev reviews every entry in this directory against the project's own documentation before publishing, and revisits them as servers change.

How to install the Brave MCP server

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brave-deep-research": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@suthio/brave-deep-research-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "your-value",
        "PUPPETEER_HEADLESS": "your-value"
      }
    }
  }
}

Add to claude_desktop_config.json, then restart Claude Desktop.

Configuration

VariableDescriptionRequired
BRAVE_API_KEYCredential the server authenticates with.Yes
PUPPETEER_HEADLESSConfiguration value read at startup.Optional

Frequently asked questions

It connects Brave to MCP-compatible AI assistants such as Claude and Cursor. Instead of copying data back and forth by hand, the assistant works with Brave directly.