searchLABSCO SUMMARY
One tool for every engine, plus output modes that spare the context.
Rather than a tool per search engine there is a single call whose parameters change with the engine, and the per-engine schemas are published as resources the model can read rather than guess at. What you spend on context is a choice at call time: compact JSON drops metadata, markdown cuts the token count sharply, and on hosts that support interactive UI the opt-in tools hand the results to the host to render instead of into the conversation.
What it is
SerpApi's hosted search server. A single search tool takes the parameters of any SerpApi engine, so a live query on Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, YouTube, eBay, Amazon, Google Scholar or the App Store comes back as structured results.
What you get
- One search tool covering every SerpApi engine and result type, with the parameters changing per engine
- Per-engine parameter schemas published as resources at serpapi://engines and serpapi://engines/<engine>, so the model can look up what an engine accepts
- Answer boxes, organic results, news, images and shopping detected and formatted automatically — weather and stock questions answered through the same call
- JSON in complete or compact mode, where compact strips the metadata
- Markdown output, which the vendor measures at about half the tokens on average and more than 90% fewer for engines with deeply nested JSON
- Two opt-in tools, search_table and search_dashboard, that render results as an interactive table or dashboard in hosts supporting the MCP Apps extension — so the bulk SERP JSON never enters the model's context
- A self-hostable build for running the same server yourself
Requirements
A SerpApi API key. The hosted server is at https://mcp.serpapi.com and takes the key either in the URL path or as an Authorization: Bearer header — path-based is the vendor's recommendation. Self-hosting needs Python 3.13 or newer and uv, or the Docker image, and then answers on your own host. MIT.
Setup effort
One command plus a key — claude mcp add --transport http serpapi https://mcp.serpapi.com/<YOUR_SERPAPI_API_KEY>/mcp, then supply credentials
USE CASES
01
Answering a question that needs today's web
One call returns live results with answer boxes and organic hits already separated, rather than a page of HTML to parse.
02
Searching a specific marketplace or index
Name the engine — Amazon, eBay, YouTube, Google Scholar, the App Store — and pass that engine's own parameters in the same tool.
03
Keeping a long research session inside the context budget
Ask for markdown, or compact JSON, so a dozen searches do not spend the window on metadata.
04
Showing results rather than summarising them
On a host that supports interactive UI, results render as a sortable table or a dashboard the person can click through, with the raw JSON staying out of the model's context.
3 tools
Listed in project docs. Your client may show a different list.
search_tablesearch_dashboardBEFORE YOU INSTALL
What to know first
Tools you get
3 tools named in the project's documentation.
Requires
- A client that can reach a remote MCP server over HTTP
- A SerpApi API key from your SerpApi dashboard, put in the URL path in place of YOUR_SERPAPI_API_KEY
Where it runs
The documented client connects to a hosted endpoint.
INSTALLATION
Connect your client
Server setup
Claude Code
TERMINAL
claude mcp add --transport http serpapi https://mcp.serpapi.com/<YOUR_SERPAPI_API_KEY>/mcp
