MCP Web Research Server

MCP Web Research Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for web research.

Bring real-time info into Claude and easily research any topic.

Features

• Google search integration

• Webpage content extraction

• Research session tracking (list of visited pages, search queries, etc.)

• Screenshot capture

Problems

This is very much pre-alpha code. And it is also AIGC, so expect bugs.

If you run into issues, it may be helpful to check Claude Desktop's MCP logs:

tail -n 20 -f ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp*.log

Development

# Install dependencies
pnpm install

# Build the project
pnpm build

# Watch for changes
pnpm watch

# Run in development mode
pnpm dev

Verified Platforms

• macOS

• Linux

License

MIT

Author

mzxrai

Prerequisites

• Node.js >= 18 (includes npm and npx)

• Claude Desktop app

Installation

First, ensure you've downloaded and installed the Claude Desktop app and you have npm installed.

Next, add this entry to your claude_desktop_config.json (on Mac, found at ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json):

{
 "mcpServers": {
 "webresearch": {
 "command": "npx",
 "args": ["-y", "@mzxrai/mcp-webresearch@latest"]
 }
 }
}

This config allows Claude Desktop to automatically start the web research MCP server when needed.

Usage

Simply start a chat with Claude and send a prompt that would benefit from web research. If you'd like a prebuilt prompt customized for deeper web research, you can use the agentic-research prompt that we provide through this package. Access that prompt in Claude Desktop by clicking the Paperclip icon in the chat input and then selecting Choose an integration → webresearch → agentic-research.

Tools

search_google

• Performs Google searches and extracts results

• Arguments: { query: string }

visit_page

• Visits a webpage and extracts its content

• Arguments: { url: string, takeScreenshot?: boolean }

take_screenshot

• Takes a screenshot of the current page

• No arguments required

Prompts

agentic-research

A guided research prompt that helps Claude conduct thorough web research. The prompt instructs Claude to:

• Start with broad searches to understand the topic landscape

• Prioritize high-quality, authoritative sources

• Iteratively refine the research direction based on findings

• Keep you informed and let you guide the research interactively

• Always cite sources with URLs

Resources

We expose two things as MCP resources: (1) captured webpage screenshots, and (2) the research session.

Screenshots

When you take a screenshot, it's saved as an MCP resource. You can access captured screenshots in Claude Desktop via the Paperclip icon.

Research Session

The server maintains a research session that includes:

• Search queries

• Visited pages

• Extracted content

• Screenshots

• Timestamps

Suggestions

For the best results, if you choose not to use the agentic-research prompt when doing your research, it may be helpful to suggest high-quality sources for Claude to use when researching general topics. For example, you could prompt news today from reuters or AP instead of news today.

Requirements

• Node.js >= 18

• Playwright (automatically installed as a dependency)