Search Scrape MCP Server

Search Scrape MCP server exists for a simple reason — assistants are far more useful when they can act on Search Scrape directly instead of describing what you should do. CortexScout is the Deep Research & Web Extraction module within the Cortex-Works ecosystem.

What you get

CortexScout provides a single, self-hostable Rust binary that exposes search, extraction, and stateful browser automation capabilities over MCP (stdio) and an optional HTTP server. Output formats are structured and optimized for downstream LLM use.

• llm_api_key: "" in cortex-scout.json is valid and means "no auth required"
• Keep synthesis_max_sources at 1-2
• Keep synthesis_max_chars_per_source around 600-1000
• Keep synthesis_max_tokens around 512-768

What the assistant can call

Once Search Scrape is connected, these are the calls the assistant has available:

• Area — MCP Tools / Capabilities
• Search — web_search (URL discovery) or web_search(include_content=true) (search+content in one call)
• Extraction — extract_fields (primary structured extraction)
• Automation — scout_browser_automate / browser_automate (stateful omni-tool), scout_agent_profile_auth, scout_browser_close
• HITL — visual_scout, hitl_web_fetch(auth_mode="challenge"
• Memory — memory_search (LanceDB-backed research history)
• Core — The Core tool exposed by this server
• Proxy — The Proxy tool exposed by this server

Configuration and credentials

You will need 6 environment variables: CORTEX_SCOUT_TOOL_TIMEOUT_SECS_SCRAPE_URL, YOUR_PATH, IP_LIST_PATH, PROXY_SOURCE_PATH, OPENAI_BASE_URL, OPENAI_API_KEY. 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.

Setting it up

Setup follows the usual MCP pattern — install or clone the server, register it in your client's configuration file, restart the client.

Choosing this one

Plenty of knowledge and memory servers cover similar ground. The differences that matter in practice are scope of access and how much setup stands between you and a working tool call. Search Scrape's toolset — Area, Search, Extraction and 5 more — is a fair guide to whether it matches your workflow. It is maintained by devshero; worth a glance at recent repository activity before you build anything load-bearing on it.

We check each listing at SyncDev against the project's documentation before it goes live — if something here drifts out of date, it is a bug worth reporting.

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 search scrape mcp server does with a few real requests.