Firecrawl API SOP

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Firecrawl MCP + Windsurf ​

Updated Feb 2026

Set up Firecrawl's MCP server in Windsurf (Codeium's AI IDE) to give Cascade, Windsurf's AI assistant, web scraping and searching capabilities.

Source: docs.firecrawl.dev/developer-guides/mcp-setup-guides/windsurf

Prerequisites ​

Configuration ​

Add the Firecrawl MCP server to Windsurf's model configuration file.

Step 1: Open the Config File ​

The Windsurf MCP configuration is stored at:

  • macOS/Linux: ~/.codeium/windsurf/model_config.json
  • Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.codeium\windsurf\model_config.json

Create the file if it does not exist.

Step 2: Add the Server ​

Add the following to model_config.json:

json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "firecrawl": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "firecrawl-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "fc-your-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Step 3: Restart Windsurf ​

Restart Windsurf or reload the window for the MCP server to be detected.

Windows Troubleshooting ​

If npx is not found on Windows, use the full path:

json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "firecrawl": {
      "command": "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\npx.cmd",
      "args": ["-y", "firecrawl-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "fc-your-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Find your npx.cmd path with:

bash
where npx

Remote MCP (Alternative) ​

Use Firecrawl's remote MCP endpoint to avoid running the server locally:

json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "firecrawl": {
      "url": "https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/YOUR_API_KEY_HERE/v2/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Replace YOUR_API_KEY_HERE with your Firecrawl API key.

Remote URL Contains Your Key

The remote MCP URL embeds your API key directly. Do not commit this file to version control.

Available Tools ​

Once configured, these tools become available to Cascade:

ToolDescription
firecrawl_scrapeScrape a single URL and return markdown
firecrawl_searchSearch the web and return results
firecrawl_crawlCrawl a website starting from a URL
firecrawl_mapDiscover all URLs on a website
firecrawl_extractExtract structured data from pages
firecrawl_batch_scrapeScrape multiple URLs in one request

Verify Setup ​

After adding the configuration:

  1. Restart Windsurf
  2. Open the Cascade AI panel
  3. Ask: "Scrape https://firecrawl.dev and tell me what it does"
  4. Cascade should invoke the firecrawl_scrape tool and return a summary

Self-Hosted Option ​

If you run a self-hosted Firecrawl instance, add the FIRECRAWL_API_URL environment variable:

json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "firecrawl": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "firecrawl-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "fc-your-api-key",
        "FIRECRAWL_API_URL": "http://localhost:3002"
      }
    }
  }
}

Further Reading ​