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Strider Labs Instacart MCP

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from markswendsen-code

MCP server for Instacart - let AI agents order groceries and household items from local stores

🔥🔥🔥✓ VerifiedFreeAdvanced setup
#email#automation#scraping#browser#git#maps#finance#security

@striderlabs/mcp-instacart

Order groceries via Instacart using AI agents

Part of Strider Labs — action execution for personal AI agents.

Get Started in 2 Minutes

For Claude Desktop Users

  1. Add this to your Claude Desktop config:
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "instacart": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@striderlabs/mcp-instacart"]
    }
  }
}
  1. Restart Claude.
  2. Tell Claude: "Order my usual groceries for delivery tomorrow morning"

Your agent can now place orders. That's it.

Features

  • 🛒 Search for products by name or category
  • 📦 Browse stores and product availability
  • 🏪 Add to cart with quantities and special requests
  • 💳 Place orders with delivery time selection
  • 📍 Track orders with real-time status
  • 🔐 Persistent sessions - stay logged in across restarts
  • 🔄 Automatic MFA - handles multi-factor authentication
  • 📱 Per-user credentials - encrypted session storage
  • ⭐ Saved items - order your favorites faster

Tested & Compatible

ComponentVersionStatus
MCP SDK^1.0.0✅
Node.js18+✅
Claude DesktopLatest✅
Claude (API)claude-3.5-sonnet+✅
Anthropic SDK^0.20+✅

Metrics

  • Weekly downloads: 271 (Apr 10-17, 2026) — Top grocery connector (+330% growth)
  • Status: ✅ Live in production
  • Reliability: 85%+ task completion rate
  • Discovery: npm, mcpservers.org, ClawHub, PulseMCP, Glama, LobeHub

Available Elsewhere

How It Works

For Agents

Your agent can use these capabilities:

// Search for products
products = search_products({
  query: "organic milk",
  location: "San Francisco, CA"
})

// Browse a store's offerings
store_products = get_store_products({
  store_id: "whole_foods_sf",
  category: "Dairy"
})

// Add to cart
add_to_cart({
  product_id: "organic_milk_gallon",
  quantity: 2,
  special_instructions: "Cold stock, please"
})

// Place an order
order = place_order({
  delivery_time: "tomorrow morning",
  delivery_address: "123 Main St, San Francisco, CA",
  special_instructions: "Ring the doorbell twice"
})

// Track delivery
status = track_order({ order_id: order.order_id })

Session Management

  • Each user has encrypted, persistent credentials
  • Automatic OAuth token refresh
  • MFA handling (SMS/email)
  • Sessions survive agent restarts

Reliability

  • 85%+ task completion rate
  • Automated UI change detection (connectors update when Instacart changes)
  • Fallback paths for failures
  • 24/7 monitoring + alerting

Authentication

The MCP server uses a persistent browser profile (~/.strider/instacart/browser-profile) so your login session survives server restarts automatically.

First-time login

  1. Set INSTACART_HEADLESS=false in your MCP server config so the browser window is visible:
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "instacart": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@striderlabs/mcp-instacart"],
      "env": { "INSTACART_HEADLESS": "false" }
    }
  }
}
  1. Restart Claude / your MCP client.
  2. Ask Claude to run instacart_login — a real browser window will open.
  3. Log in to Instacart inside that window.
  4. Run instacart_status to confirm authentication.
  5. Remove INSTACART_HEADLESS (or set it back to true) and restart — the saved profile keeps you logged in.

How login detection works

Authentication is verified by navigating to /account and confirming the page resolves without a redirect to /login or /authentication (positive detection). This is more reliable than checking for the absence of a "Log in" button.

Architecture

How We Connect

This connector uses browser automation (Playwright) to interact with Instacart, because Instacart doesn't have a public API. Here's why that's safe and reliable:

  • User-controlled: Your agent only accesses your own Instacart account
  • Session-based: We store your login session securely, not your password
  • Change-aware: We detect Instacart UI changes and alert immediately
  • Fingerprinting: We use realistic browser profiles to avoid bot detection
  • Rate-limited: We respect Instacart's infrastructure with appropriate delays

Security

  • Credentials stored encrypted in your local .env or secure vault
  • Sessions isolated per user
  • No data sent to third parties
  • MIT Licensed — audit the code yourself

Support