Image MCP Server

If you already use Image, the image mcp server is the piece that lets your assistant work with it directly. MCP server for context-aware royalty-free image search from Pexels and Unsplash.

What the server does

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that provides royalty-free image search for AI hosts like Cursor, Claude Desktop, VS Code, Windsurf, and more. Ask your AI assistant to find images by natural language—it uses the search_images tool and returns structured results from Pexels and Unsplash.

• search_images — — Search for royalty-free images (supports limit, page, orientation)
• extract_image_query — — Transform free-form text into an image search query
• get_best_image — — Return a single best image for a query
• search_images_batch — — Run multiple searches in parallel
• resolve_image_attribution — — Generate provider-compliant attribution text
• Pexels & Unsplash — — Multi-provider support (free tier for both)

Available tools

The toolset is worth reading before you wire it up, because it tells you what the integration is really for:

• Cursor — The Cursor tool exposed by this server
• Windsurf — The Windsurf tool exposed by this server

Installation

Setup follows the usual MCP pattern — install or clone the server, register it in your client's configuration file, restart the client. The configuration blocks on this page cover the common clients.

Credentials and setup notes

Configuration is passed through the environment: PEXELS_API_KEY, UNSPLASH_ACCESS_KEY. Treat anything key-shaped as a real credential — scope it to the minimum the server needs, and rotate it if it ever lands in a shared config.

• Node.js 18+ - At least one API key: Pexels (pexels.com/api) and/or Unsplash (unsplash.com/oauth/applications)

Where it fits

Among the developer tooling 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. Image's toolset — Cursor, Windsurf — is a fair guide to whether it matches your workflow. It is maintained by ahmaddioxide; 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.

Worth knowing first

• 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.
• Keep per-call confirmation enabled while you learn its behaviour; it is the cheapest safeguard you have.