Name: Marginalia Search
Author: bmorphism

LABSCO SUMMARY

A different corpus, not a different ranking of the same one.

Marginalia deliberately favours small, text-dense, non-commercial sites, which is why it returns things a mainstream search will not — personal essays, old documentation, hobbyist writing. Attach this when the failure mode you are fighting is an answer assembled from SEO pages. The public endpoint is shared, so pair it with a general search server rather than making it the only way your assistant reaches the web.

What it is

An MCP server over the Marginalia Search API, a search engine built to surface non-commercial writing and obscure corners of the web rather than the pages optimised to rank. One tool, with the index selector from Marginalia's own interface exposed as a parameter.

What you get

A Marginalia web search from a query string, returning each result's URL, title and description, plus the licence information Marginalia attaches to its results — search
A result count from 1 to 100, defaulting to 10
The index parameter, matching the index dropdown in Marginalia's own interface, so you can steer what part of its corpus answers
Rate limiting handled with an explanatory error rather than a silent failure, since the public endpoint returns 503 when it is busy

Requirements

No account and no key to start: MARGINALIA_API_KEY is optional and the server falls back to public access without it. A dedicated key is requested by email from Marginalia. The npm package name is marginalia-mcp-server (0.1.0) and it is marked private, so build from a clone with npm install and npm run build. Public access is rate-limited, so expect to wait between bursts rather than treating it as a bulk search backend.

Setup effort

Build from source — git clone https://github.com/bmorphism/marginalia-mcp-server.git

See installation options

USE CASES

01

Finding writing that is not trying to sell you something

Search a topic on Marginalia and get personal sites, essays and documentation instead of the commercial results a mainstream engine surfaces first.

02

Researching an obscure or old subject

Query the corners of the web that stayed static — archives, hobbyist pages, old manuals — where a general engine returns nothing useful.

03

Getting a second opinion on a search

Run the same query here after a mainstream search and compare what the two corpora surface, before concluding a topic has only one account.

1 tool

Counted once with only startup setup. Other versions, modes or optional credentials may expose a different list.

`search-marginalia`

Search the web using Marginalia Search

BEFORE YOU INSTALL

What to know first

Tools you get

1 tool when we connected. The tool registers as search-marginalia, though the documentation calls it search.

Requires

Node.js with npm

Where it runs

The documented client runs the server on your machine.

CONTEXT COST

Light Standing cost

Rated by the size of the one tool definition that rides along on every turn

INSTALLATION

Connect your client

You clone and build this one yourself.

Server setup

TERMINAL

git clone https://github.com/bmorphism/marginalia-mcp-server.git
cd marginalia-mcp-server
npm install
npm run build

MCP Clients

Any MCP client

ANY MCP CLIENT · JSON

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "marginalia-mcp-server": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": [
        "<YOUR_MARGINALIA_MCP_SERVER_CLONE>/build/index.js"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Marginalia Search