Perplexity

Add to your client

Copy the config for your MCP client and paste it into its config file.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "perplexity": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@perplexity-ai/mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "PERPLEXITY_API_KEY": "<your-perplexity-api-key>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Step-by-step guides: Add to Claude Desktop · Add to Cursor · Add to Windsurf

Before you start

• Node.js with npx available
• A Perplexity API key from the API portal at https://www.perplexity.ai/account/api/group (set as PERPLEXITY_API_KEY)
• API access requires adding a payment method / credits to your Perplexity account

About Perplexity

Tools & capabilities (4)

When to use it

• Use it when you want grounded, up-to-date answers with citations instead of the model's stale training data.
• Use it when you need a quick ranked list of web results to feed into an agent (perplexity_search).
• Use it when you need a long, sourced research report on a topic (perplexity_research / sonar-deep-research).
• Use it when a task needs structured multi-step reasoning rather than a simple lookup (perplexity_reason).
• Use it when you want to strip chain-of-thought tags from responses to save context tokens (strip_thinking).

Quick setup

1. 1Create a Perplexity API key at https://www.perplexity.ai/account/api/group.
2. 2Set the PERPLEXITY_API_KEY environment variable with your key.
3. 3Add the server to your client config with command `npx -y @perplexity-ai/mcp-server`, or run `claude mcp add perplexity --env PERPLEXITY_API_KEY=... -- npx -y @perplexity-ai/mcp-server`.
4. 4Optionally configure PERPLEXITY_TIMEOUT_MS and PERPLEXITY_PROXY for long research calls or corporate networks.
5. 5Restart your MCP client and verify by asking it to run a Perplexity search.

Perplexity FAQ