Firecrawl MCP Server

New

The Firecrawl MCP Server exposes Firecrawl's web scraping and search capabilities as MCP tools, making them available to any MCP-compatible AI agent: Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, and more.

Overview

Available MCP Tools

Tool	Description
firecrawl_scrape	Scrape a single URL, return markdown/HTML/screenshot
firecrawl_map	Discover all URLs on a domain
firecrawl_search	Search the web and return scraped results
firecrawl_crawl	Crawl a full website asynchronously
firecrawl_check_crawl_status	Poll crawl job status
firecrawl_extract	LLM-structured extraction from one or more URLs
firecrawl_agent	Start an agent research task
firecrawl_agent_status	Check agent task status

Installation

Remote Hosted URL (Recommended)

The fastest setup — no local process required:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "firecrawl": {
      "url": "https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/YOUR_API_KEY"
    }
  }
}

Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your Firecrawl API key.

Running with npx

npx -y firecrawl-mcp

Set the env var first:

export FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=fc-YOUR-API-KEY
npx -y firecrawl-mcp

Setup per Client

Claude Code

claude mcp add firecrawl -e FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=fc-YOUR-API-KEY -- npx -y firecrawl-mcp

Or add to ~/.claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "firecrawl": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "firecrawl-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "fc-YOUR-API-KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop

Edit ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (Mac) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "firecrawl": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "firecrawl-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "fc-YOUR-API-KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor

Open Settings → Cursor Settings → MCP → Add Server:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "firecrawl": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "firecrawl-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "fc-YOUR-API-KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

Windsurf

Edit Windsurf MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "firecrawl": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "firecrawl-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "fc-YOUR-API-KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

VS Code

Add to .vscode/mcp.json in your workspace:

{
  "servers": {
    "firecrawl": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "firecrawl-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "fc-YOUR-API-KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

Streamable HTTP Mode

For production deployments or multi-client setups, run the server in HTTP mode:

FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=fc-YOUR-API-KEY firecrawl-mcp --transport streamable-http --port 3000

Then configure clients to connect via HTTP transport.

Environment Variables

Required

Variable	Description
FIRECRAWL_API_KEY	Your Firecrawl API key (fc-...)

Optional

Variable	Default	Description
FIRECRAWL_API_URL	https://api.firecrawl.dev	Custom API endpoint (self-hosted)
FIRECRAWL_RETRY_MAX_ATTEMPTS	3	Max retry attempts on failure
FIRECRAWL_RETRY_INITIAL_DELAY	1000	Initial retry delay (ms)
FIRECRAWL_RETRY_MAX_DELAY	10000	Max retry delay (ms)
FIRECRAWL_RETRY_BACKOFF_FACTOR	2	Exponential backoff multiplier
FIRECRAWL_CREDIT_WARNING_THRESHOLD	1000	Warn when credits fall below this
FIRECRAWL_CREDIT_CRITICAL_THRESHOLD	100	Critical alert threshold

Tool Usage Examples

Scrape a URL

Use firecrawl_scrape to get the content of https://firecrawl.dev

With lockdown mode (cache only, no outbound request):

Use firecrawl_scrape on https://firecrawl.dev with lockdown: true

Search the Web

Use firecrawl_search to find "Firecrawl API pricing" and return the top 5 results

Map a Domain

Use firecrawl_map on https://docs.firecrawl.dev to get all page URLs

Extract Structured Data

Use firecrawl_extract on https://firecrawl.dev/pricing to get plan names and prices as JSON

Rate Limiting

The MCP server implements automatic rate limiting and retry logic. Configure via environment variables above. Batch requests are processed with built-in concurrency controls to stay within Firecrawl API rate limits.

---

See also: MCP Server Feature Page → | MCP Setup Guides →