Tavily
Provides AI assistants with real-time web search, intelligent data extraction from web pages, website mapping, and web crawling capabilities through Tavily's API. Enables comprehensive web research and content analysis through natural language intera
What is Tavily?
Tavily is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that allows AI assistants like Claude, Cursor, and VS Code to provides ai assistants with real-time web search, intelligent data extraction from web pages, website mapping, and web crawling capabilities through tavily's api. enables comprehensive web research an...
Provides AI assistants with real-time web search, intelligent data extraction from web pages, website mapping, and web crawling capabilities through Tavily's API. Enables comprehensive web research and content analysis through natural language intera
This server falls under the Search & Data Extraction category on MCPgee, the world's largest MCP server directory with 33,000+ servers.
Features
- Provides AI assistants with real-time web search, intelligen
Use Cases
Maintainer
Works with
Installation
NPM
npx -y tavily-mcpManual Installation
npx -y tavily-mcpConfiguration
Configuration Details
claude_desktop_config.json
Performance
Response Metrics
Resource Usage
How to Set Up and Use Tavily
The Tavily MCP Server gives AI assistants real-time web search, intelligent data extraction from individual web pages, structured website mapping, and recursive web crawling through Tavily's research-grade API. Unlike general search engines, Tavily is purpose-built for AI agents and returns clean, parsed content optimized for language model consumption. Developers and researchers use it to ground AI responses in current web data, extract structured content from target sites, and build comprehensive web research workflows entirely through natural language.
Prerequisites
- Node.js 18 or later with npx available
- A Tavily API key (sign up at tavily.com — a free tier is available)
- An MCP client such as Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, or Windsurf
Get your Tavily API key
Sign up at app.tavily.com and navigate to the API Keys section to generate your key. The free tier includes a generous number of searches per month.
Add Tavily MCP via Claude Code CLI
The fastest way to register the server is with the Claude Code CLI. This stores the API key as a scoped environment variable.
claude mcp add tavily --env TAVILY_API_KEY="your_api_key_here" -- npx -y tavily-mcp@latestConfigure in Claude Desktop manually
Alternatively, add the server block to your claude_desktop_config.json. The TAVILY_API_KEY environment variable is required; DEFAULT_PARAMETERS is optional and accepts a JSON string with default search settings.
{
"mcpServers": {
"tavily-mcp": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "tavily-mcp@latest"],
"env": {
"TAVILY_API_KEY": "tvly-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
"DEFAULT_PARAMETERS": "{\"include_images\": true}"
}
}
}
}Use the remote hosted endpoint (optional)
Tavily also offers a hosted MCP endpoint. You can connect to it directly without running any local process — just embed your API key in the URL.
claude mcp add --transport http tavily https://mcp.tavily.com/mcp/?tavilyApiKey=your_api_key_hereRestart your client and verify the tools
Restart Claude Desktop or reload your editor. Four tools should be available: tavily-search (web search), tavily-extract (page extraction), tavily-map (site mapping), and tavily-crawl (recursive crawl).
Tavily Examples
Client configuration
Complete claude_desktop_config.json block for the Tavily MCP server with image support enabled.
{
"mcpServers": {
"tavily-mcp": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "tavily-mcp@latest"],
"env": {
"TAVILY_API_KEY": "tvly-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
"DEFAULT_PARAMETERS": "{\"include_images\": true}"
}
}
}
}Prompts to try
Example prompts for using Tavily's four search and extraction tools.
- "Search the web for the latest AI research papers published this week."
- "Extract the main content and pricing from https://example-saas.com/pricing."
- "Map the structure of docs.example.com and list all top-level sections."
- "Crawl the blog at blog.example.com and summarize the last 5 posts."
- "Search for recent news about electric vehicle battery technology and cite your sources."Troubleshooting Tavily
API returns 401 Unauthorized
Verify TAVILY_API_KEY is correctly set and matches the key shown in your Tavily dashboard at app.tavily.com. The key should start with 'tvly-'. Regenerate it if in doubt.
Search results seem outdated or irrelevant
Tavily's search is recency-aware by default. If results are not fresh enough, explicitly ask for recent results in your prompt (e.g., 'from the past 7 days'). You can also adjust DEFAULT_PARAMETERS to set search_depth to 'advanced'.
npx download is slow or stalls on first run
The first run downloads tavily-mcp from npm. Switch to the hosted remote endpoint (https://mcp.tavily.com/mcp/) to avoid local installation entirely, or pre-install with 'npm install -g tavily-mcp'.
Frequently Asked Questions about Tavily
What is Tavily?
Tavily is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides ai assistants with real-time web search, intelligent data extraction from web pages, website mapping, and web crawling capabilities through tavily's api. enables comprehensive web research and content analysis through natural language intera It connects AI assistants to external tools and data sources through a standardized interface.
How do I install Tavily?
Install via npm with the command: npx -y tavily-mcp. Then add the server configuration to your AI client's JSON config file (e.g., claude_desktop_config.json or .cursor/mcp.json).
Which AI clients work with Tavily?
Tavily works with all major MCP-compatible AI clients including Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code (GitHub Copilot), Windsurf, and Cline.
Is Tavily free to use?
Yes, Tavily is open source and available under the MIT license. You can use it freely in both personal and commercial projects.
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Browse More Search & Data Extraction MCP Servers
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Set Up Tavily in Your Editor
Choose your AI client for step-by-step setup instructions.
Quick Config Preview
Add this to your claude_desktop_config.json or .cursor/mcp.json
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