MCP Server

Give your AI assistants the power to help you more effectively. This server lets them safely access websites and search the web - with clear feedback about what's happening and helpful error messages when things go wrong.

🛠️ What tools does this server offer?
🏎️ How can I run it?
- 🐋 Using Docker (recommended)
- 💻 Running locally
🔌 How to connect
📚 Learn more about MCP
📄 License

🛠️ What tools does this server offer?

The server provides two powerful tools that help AI assistants solve real-world problems:

| Tool | What it can do | | ------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Search | Search the web via SearXNG for current information, specific resources, or to perform calculations. | | Web | Access websites and process their content. Can convert pages to markdown for easy reading, get the raw content, or extract links. |

🏎️ How can I run it?

🐋 Using Docker (recommended)

The server runs in Docker containers to keep things safe and simple. Here's how to get started:

Install Docker if you haven't already

Create a file called docker-compose.yml with:

services:
  mcp-server:
    environment:
      # Required: URL for your SearXNG instance's Search API
      - SEARXNG_QUERY_URL=http://searxng:8080
      # Optional: Configure network mode (SSE) for LibreChat etc.
      - SSE_HOST=0.0.0.0
      - SSE_PORT=8080
      # Optional: Set a custom User-Agent for web requests
      - USER_AGENT=MCP-Server/1.0 (github.com/tcpipuk/mcp-server)
    image: ghcr.io/tcpipuk/mcp-server/server:latest
    ports: # Only needed if using SSE_HOST/SSE_PORT
      - "8080:8080" # Expose port 8080 on host
    restart: unless-stopped
    stop_grace_period: 1s

  # Example SearXNG service (optional, adapt as needed)
  # searxng:
  #   environment:
  #     - SEARXNG_BASE_URL=http://searxng:8080 # Ensure SearXNG knows its own URL
  #   image: searxng/searxng:latest
  #   restart: unless-stopped
  #   volumes:
  #     - ./searxng:/etc/searxng:rw

Important: You must provide the SEARXNG_QUERY_URL environment variable, pointing to the Search API endpoint of your SearXNG instance (usually ending in / or /search).

Setting SSE_HOST and SSE_PORT enables network mode (Server-Sent Events), recommended for multi-container setups like LibreChat. If omitted, the server uses standard I/O.

Run docker compose up -d to start the server container (and optionally SearXNG).

Most people use this with either:

Claude Desktop - connects directly via stdio (omit SSE_HOST/SSE_PORT in docker-compose.yml).
LibreChat - connects over the network via SSE.

For LibreChat, add this to your librechat.yaml (assuming SSE_PORT=8080):

mcpServers:
  mcp-server:
    iconPath: "/path/to/icon.png" # Optional: Custom icon
    label: "MCP Web/Search" # Optional: Custom label shown in UI
    type: sse
    url: http://mcp-server:8080/sse # Adjust host/port if needed

💻 Running locally

Install uv (requires Python 3.13+):
```
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
```
Note: If you already have uv installed, update it with uv self update.

Create and activate a virtual environment:

uv venv
source .venv/bin/activate  # Linux/macOS
# or
.venv\Scripts\activate     # Windows

Install dependencies from the lockfile:
```
uv sync
```

Set required environment variables:

# Required: URL for your SearXNG instance's Search API
export SEARXNG_QUERY_URL="http://your-searxng-instance.local:8080"
# Optional: Custom User-Agent
export USER_AGENT="CustomAgent/1.0"

Run the server:

# For network (SSE) mode (e.g., for LibreChat)
mcp-server --sse-host 0.0.0.0 --sse-port 3001

# For direct stdio mode (e.g., for Claude Desktop)
mcp-server

Available arguments:

--sse-host: SSE listening address (e.g., 0.0.0.0). Enables SSE mode.
--sse-port: SSE listening port (e.g., 3001). Enables SSE mode.
--user-agent: Custom User-Agent string (overrides USER_AGENT env var).

Note: If neither --sse-host nor --sse-port are provided (and SSE_HOST/SSE_PORT env vars are not set), the server defaults to stdio mode. The SEARXNG_QUERY_URL environment variable is always required.

🔌 How to connect

You can connect to the server in two ways:

| Method | What it means | When to use it | | ------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------- | | Network connection (SSE) | The server listens on a network port for connections. | Best for LibreChat or other networked clients. | | Direct connection (stdio) | The server communicates directly via standard input/out. | Useful for local testing or Claude Desktop. |

📚 Learn more about MCP

Here are a few resources to get you started:

📄 License

This project is licensed under the GPLv3. See the LICENSE file for full details.