The Apify Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server at mcp.apify.com instantly connects AI applications and agents to thousands of readyâbuilt tools. It allows your AI assistant to use any Apify Actor for web scraping, data extraction, and automation tasks in real time.
ð Try the hosted Apify MCP Server!
For the easiest setup and most powerful features, including the ability to find and use any Actor from Apify Store, connect your AI assistant to our hosted server:
It supports OAuth, so you can connect from clients like Claude.ai or Visual Studio Code with just the URL.
The Apify MCP Server allows an AI assistant to use any Apify Actor as a tool to perform a specific task. For example, it can:
Video tutorial: Integrate 5,000+ Apify Actors and Agents with Claude
You can use the Apify MCP Server in two ways:
HTTPS Endpoint (mcp.apify.com): Connect from your MCP client via OAuth or by including the Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_TOKEN>
header in your requests. This is the recommended method for most use cases. Because it supports OAuth, you can connect from clients like Claude.ai or Visual Studio Code using just the URL: https://mcp.apify.com
.
https://mcp.apify.com
(recommended) for streamable transporthttps://mcp.apify.com/sse
for legacy SSE transportStandard Input/Output (stdio): Ideal for local integrations and command-line tools like the Claude for Desktop client.
npx @apify/actors-mcp-server
and the APIFY_TOKEN
environment variable to your Apify API token.npx @apify/actors-mcp-server --help
for more options.You can find detailed instructions for setting up the MCP server in the Apify documentation.
ð¤ MCP clients and examplesTo interact with the Apify MCP server, you can use various MCP clients, such as:
With MCP server integrated, you can ask your AI assistant things like:
The following table outlines the tested MCP clients and their level of support for key features.
Client Dynamic Tool Discovery Notes Claude.ai (web) â Full Claude Desktop ð¡ Partial Tools may need to be reloaded manually in the client. VS Code (Genie) â Full LibreChat â Untested Apify Tester MCP Client â Full Designed for testing Apify MCP servers.This matrix is a work in progress. If you have tested other clients, please consider contributing to this documentation.
ðª Try Apify MCP InstantlyWant to try Apify MCP without any setup?
Check out Apify Tester MCP Client
This interactive, chat-like interface provides an easy way to explore the capabilities of Apify MCP without any local setup. Just sign in with your Apify account and start experimenting with web scraping, data extraction, and automation tools!
Or use the Anthropic Desktop extension file (dxt) for one-click installation: Apify MCP server dxt file
ð ï¸ Tools, resources, and promptsThe MCP server provides a set of tools for interacting with Apify Actors. Since the Apify Store is large and growing rapidly, the MCP server provides a way to dynamically discover and use new Actors.
Any Apify Actor can be used as a tool. By default, the server is pre-configured with one Actor, apify/rag-web-browser
, and several helper tools. The MCP server loads an Actor's input schema and creates a corresponding MCP tool. This allows the AI agent to know exactly what arguments to pass to the Actor and what to expect in return.
For example, for the apify/rag-web-browser
Actor, the input parameters are:
{ "query": "restaurants in San Francisco", "maxResults": 3 }
You don't need to manually specify which Actor to call or its input parameters; the LLM handles this automatically. When a tool is called, the arguments are automatically passed to the Actor by the LLM. You can refer to the specific Actor's documentation for a list of available arguments.
One of the most powerful features of using MCP with Apify is dynamic tool discovery. It gives an AI agent the ability to find new tools (Actors) as needed and incorporate them. Here are some special MCP operations and how the Apify MCP Server supports them:
Note: Helper tool categories marked with (*) are not enabled by default in the MCP server and must be explicitly enabled using the tools
argument (either the --tools
command line argument for the stdio server or the ?tools
URL query parameter for the remote MCP server). The tools
argument is a comma-separated list of categories with the following possible values:
docs
: Search and fetch Apify documentation tools.runs
: Get Actor run lists, run details, and logs from a specific Actor run.storage
: Access datasets, key-value stores, and their records.preview
: Experimental tools in preview mode.For example, to enable all tools, use npx @apify/actors-mcp-server --tools docs,runs,storage,preview
or https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=docs,runs,storage,preview
.
Here is an overview list of all the tools provided by the Apify MCP Server.
Tool name Category Description Enabled by defaultget-actor-details
default Retrieve detailed information about a specific Actor. â
search-actors
default Search for Actors in the Apify Store. â
add-actor
default Add an Actor as a new tool for the user to call. â
apify-slash-rag-web-browser
default An Actor tool to browse the web. â
search-apify-docs
docs Search the Apify documentation for relevant pages. â
fetch-apify-docs
docs Fetch the full content of an Apify documentation page by its URL. â
call-actor
preview Call an Actor and get its run results. get-actor-run
runs Get detailed information about a specific Actor run. get-actor-run-list
runs Get a list of an Actor's runs, filterable by status. get-actor-log
runs Retrieve the logs for a specific Actor run. get-dataset
storage Get metadata about a specific dataset. get-dataset-items
storage Retrieve items from a dataset with support for filtering and pagination. get-key-value-store
storage Get metadata about a specific key-value store. get-key-value-store-keys
storage List the keys within a specific key-value store. get-key-value-store-record
storage Get the value associated with a specific key in a key-value store. get-dataset-list
storage List all available datasets for the user. get-key-value-store-list
storage List all available key-value stores for the user.
The server provides a set of predefined example prompts to help you get started interacting with Apify through MCP. For example, there is a GetLatestNewsOnTopic
prompt that allows you to easily retrieve the latest news on a specific topic using the RAG Web Browser Actor.
The server does not yet provide any resources.
Debugging the NPM packageTo debug the server, use the MCP Inspector tool:
export APIFY_TOKEN="your-apify-token" npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector npx -y @apify/actors-mcp-server
Create an environment file, .env
, with the following content:
APIFY_TOKEN="your-apify-token"
Build the actor-mcp-server
package:
Run using Apify CLI:
export APIFY_TOKEN="your-apify-token" export APIFY_META_ORIGIN=STANDBY apify run -p
Once the server is running, you can use the MCP Inspector to debug the server exposed at http://localhost:3001
.
You can launch the MCP Inspector with this command:
export APIFY_TOKEN="your-apify-token" npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector node ./dist/stdio.js
Upon launching, the Inspector will display a URL that you can open in your browser to begin debugging.
ð Troubleshooting (local MCP server)node
installed by running node -v
.APIFY_TOKEN
environment variable is set.@apify/actors-mcp-server@latest
.The Actor input schema is processed to be compatible with most MCP clients while adhering to JSON Schema standards. The processing includes:
MAX_DESCRIPTION_LENGTH
).ACTOR_ENUM_MAX_LENGTH
).REQUIRED
prefix in their descriptions for compatibility with frameworks that may not handle the JSON schema properly.We welcome contributions to improve the Apify MCP Server! Here's how you can help:
For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss your proposal and ensure it aligns with the project's goals.
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