Perplexity MCP

MCP servers

Official Perplexity MCP server: real-time web search, ask, deep research, and reasoning via Sonar models.

by Perplexityperplexityai/modelcontextprotocol

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Install

install

$ claude mcp add perplexity --env PERPLEXITY_API_KEY="your_key_here" -- npx -y @perplexity-ai/mcp-server

Update

update

$ claude mcp add perplexity --env PERPLEXITY_API_KEY="your_key_here" -- npx -y @perplexity-ai/mcp-server

npx-launched MCP server: re-running add (or restarting the client) pulls the newest @perplexity-ai/mcp-server. If installed via the plugin marketplace instead, update with /plugin marketplace update modelcontextprotocol.

When to use it

You need the agent to pull current, citable web information mid-task instead of relying on training data.
You want a deep multi-source research report generated with sonar-deep-research from inside Claude Code.
You need complex reasoning grounded in live web search via sonar-reasoning-pro.
You want ranked raw search results (with metadata) to feed into a downstream task.

Commands & flags

perplexity_search: Direct web search via the Perplexity Search API; returns ranked results with metadata.
perplexity_ask: Conversational AI with real-time web search using sonar-pro; quick everyday questions.
perplexity_research: Deep, comprehensive research via sonar-deep-research for thorough analysis and reports.
perplexity_reason: Advanced reasoning and problem-solving via sonar-reasoning-pro for complex analytical tasks.
strip_thinking: Optional flag on reason/research to drop <think>...</think> tags and save context tokens.

How to use it

This is an MCP server, not a skill/plugin. Register it once with your Perplexity API key (from the API Portal):

claude mcp add perplexity --env PERPLEXITY_API_KEY="your_key_here" -- npx -y @perplexity-ai/mcp-server

Or install via the plugin marketplace:

export PERPLEXITY_API_KEY="your_key_here"
claude
# /plugin marketplace add perplexityai/modelcontextprotocol
# /plugin install perplexity

Then call the four tools (perplexity_search, perplexity_ask, perplexity_research, perplexity_reason) by name. For long research queries raise PERPLEXITY_TIMEOUT_MS; behind a corporate proxy set PERPLEXITY_PROXY. For cloud/shared deployments run in HTTP mode via Docker or npm run start:http (exposes http://localhost:8080/mcp).

Why it earns its place

The official, first-party Perplexity MCP server (published as @perplexity-ai/mcp-server on npm), so it tracks the Sonar API directly rather than a community wrapper. It gives any agent four well-scoped capabilities — ranked search, quick ask, deep research, and advanced reasoning — each mapped to the right Sonar model, plus a strip_thinking flag to save tokens. One-line install, env-var config, optional proxy and HTTP/Docker deployment make it production-ready.

Try it

claude

> Use perplexity_research to produce a cited report on the current state of MCP server security best practices.