web-retrieval-mcp — MCP web search & web fetch for AI agents (Exa + Firecrawl)

web-retrieval-mcp is an open-source Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that gives AI agents two web tools — neural web search (Exa) and a tiered web fetch (Exa → optional local browser → Firecrawl) — as a drop-in replacement for built-in WebSearch/WebFetch. It preserves per-source provenance, guards against SSRF, runs cross-platform (macOS/Linux/Windows), and works with Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, and any MCP client. Runs on free API tiers.

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Why replace the built-in web tools?

An agent's stock WebSearch / WebFetch tend to flatten many sources into one blurry summary, drop provenance, and silently fail on JavaScript-heavy or anti-bot pages. This server fixes that:

	Built-in web tools	web-retrieval-mcp
Search results	One merged summary, sources conflated	One block per result — each keeps its own title, URL, highlights, and text, plus a Sources trailer
Fetch reliability	Single attempt, gives up on hard pages	Tiered fallback: Exa contents → optional local browser → Firecrawl, with a [served by: …] provenance header
JS / anti-bot pages	Usually fails	Opt-in real headless browser (camoufox) on demand
Safety	—	SSRF guard rejects loopback / private / link-local / multicast hosts before any request
Cost	Bundled / metered by your model vendor	Free on Exa + Firecrawl free tiers (see below)

Runs on free API tiers — and the free tiers are more than enough

Both providers have a genuinely usable free, no-credit-card tier, and because fetches hit Exa first (Firecrawl is only the fallback), a single developer or agent rarely touches the Firecrawl quota at all:

Provider	Free tier (verified 2026)	Role in this server
Exa	1,000 requests / month, no card	Powers web_search and the first web_fetch tier
Firecrawl	1,000 pages / month, no card	Fallback fetch tier only — rarely reached
camoufox (local browser)	Unlimited & free — runs on your machine	Opt-in render="always" tier for JS/anti-bot pages

For a personal agent that's ~33 searches and 33 hard-page fetches every day, indefinitely, for $0/month. Heavy production workloads can upgrade either provider independently — the tiering and code don't change.

Features

• 🔎 web_search — neural / keyword / auto search via Exa, one provenance-preserving block per result.
• 🌐 web_fetch — single-URL readable content through a resilient tier chain with provenance headers.
• 🧱 Tiered fallback — Exa contents → (opt-in) local camoufox browser → Firecrawl, so hard pages still resolve.
• 🛡️ SSRF guard — non-public hosts (loopback, RFC-1918, link-local, multicast, NAT64) are refused up front.
• 🔑 Cross-platform secrets — env vars, a key file, the keyring library, or an OS secret tool. No keys on the command line.
• 🚫 Hook to disable the built-ins — bundled PreToolUse hook + one-command installer so agents must use these tools.
• 📦 One-command install — uvx, pipx, or pip; ships two console scripts.

Quickstart

# Run with no install — uvx fetches and runs it on demand:
uvx web-retrieval-mcp

# Or install the CLI (isolated, recommended):
pipx install web-retrieval-mcp          # or: pip install web-retrieval-mcp

# Optional extras:
pip install "web-retrieval-mcp[render]"    # local headless-browser tier (render="always")
pip install "web-retrieval-mcp[keyring]"   # cross-platform native secret store
python -m camoufox fetch                   # one-time browser download (only if you use [render])

On PyPI. Prefer the bleeding edge? Install from source: pipx install git+https://github.com/VelvetSP/web-retrieval-mcp.

Get free API keys: Exa → https://exa.ai · Firecrawl → https://firecrawl.dev — then:

export EXA_API_KEY="exa-..."
export FIRECRAWL_API_KEY="fc-..."

Register with Claude Code

# After `pipx install web-retrieval-mcp` puts the script on your PATH:
claude mcp add web-retrieval -- web-retrieval-mcp

# Or with no prior install, via uvx:
claude mcp add web-retrieval -- uvx web-retrieval-mcp

Register with Claude Desktop / any MCP client

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "web-retrieval": {
      "command": "web-retrieval-mcp",
      "env": {
        "EXA_API_KEY": "exa-...",
        "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "fc-..."
      }
    }
  }
}

command above assumes web-retrieval-mcp is on PATH (after pipx install). Otherwise set command to uvx with args: ["--from", "git+https://github.com/VelvetSP/web-retrieval-mcp", "web-retrieval-mcp"].

Tools

Tool	Signature	What it returns
web_search	web_search(query, num_results=8, mode="auto")	Neural web search via Exa. One block per result — each with its own title, URL, published date, highlights, and text — plus a Sources list. mode ∈ auto | neural | keyword.
web_fetch	web_fetch(url, render="auto", max_chars=20000, max_age_hours=None)	One URL's readable content through the tier chain, with a [served by: …] provenance header.

web_fetch details

Fetch one URL's readable content through the tier chain, returned with a [served by: …] header.

render="auto"   (default) →  Exa /contents  →  Firecrawl                 # no local browser
render="never"            →  Exa /contents  →  Firecrawl                 # same, explicit
render="always"           →  camoufox (local browser)  →  Firecrawl      # for JS / anti-bot pages

max_age_hours controls Exa's freshness window (0 = force fresh; None = Exa default cache).

Cross-platform API keys

Keys are resolved in-process (never on the command line, which is visible via ps), cheapest/safest source first — the same code path on macOS, Linux, and Windows:

1. Environment variables — EXA_API_KEY, FIRECRAWL_API_KEY. Universal; required for headless / CI.
2. Key file — a dotenv-style KEY=value file at $WEB_RETRIEVAL_MCP_ENV_FILE or <config-dir>/keys.env (~/.config/web-retrieval-mcp/ on Linux/macOS, %APPDATA%\web-retrieval-mcp\ on Windows).
3. keyring library — native store on every OS: macOS Keychain, Windows Credential Locker, Linux Secret Service / KWallet. Install the [keyring] extra, then store under service web-retrieval-mcp:

   keyring set web-retrieval-mcp EXA_API_KEY
   keyring set web-retrieval-mcp FIRECRAWL_API_KEY
   

4. OS-native secret CLI — macOS security, Linux secret-tool (libsecret), if present.

An unexpanded ${...} config literal is treated as absent.

Block the built-in web tools (Claude Code)

So agents and subagents can't silently fall back to the lower-fidelity built-ins, this repo ships a PreToolUse hook that denies WebSearch / WebFetch and points the agent here. Install it idempotently:

web-retrieval-mcp-install              # patch ~/.claude/settings.json (backs it up first)
web-retrieval-mcp-install --print      # preview only, write nothing
web-retrieval-mcp-install --register-mcp   # also run `claude mcp add`
web-retrieval-mcp-install --uninstall  # remove the hook

Break-glass: touch ~/.claude/.web-builtins-allow re-enables the built-ins for the session; remove the file to re-arm. The hook is pure POSIX sh (no jq).

Security — SSRF

web_fetch validates every URL before any request: non-http(s) schemes and any host resolving to a non-public IP (loopback, private/RFC-1918, link-local, reserved/NAT64, multicast) are refused. The only tier that runs a real browser on your machine (camoufox) is opt-in (render="always"), so the default path never exposes it. Residual: the camoufox tier follows redirects, so the up-front check covers the initial URL only — full closure would need a validating forward proxy. The default auto/never path never runs the browser.

FAQ

What is web-retrieval-mcp? An open-source MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that gives AI agents two web tools — web_search (Exa) and web_fetch (Exa → local browser → Firecrawl) — as a drop-in replacement for built-in web access, with provenance preservation and an SSRF guard.

Does it work with Claude Code? Yes. Register with claude mcp add web-retrieval -- web-retrieval-mcp, and optionally install the bundled hook so the built-in WebSearch/WebFetch are disabled in favor of these tools.

Is it free? Yes. The code is MIT-licensed, and it runs on the free tiers of Exa (1,000 requests/month) and Firecrawl (1,000 pages/month), neither of which requires a credit card. The local browser tier is free and unlimited.

Which platforms are supported? macOS, Linux, and Windows. Key resolution and the server are cross-platform; the local browser tier needs the optional [render] extra.

How is it better than built-in WebSearch/WebFetch? It returns one result block per source (no conflated summaries), preserves provenance, falls back across multiple fetch backends so hard/JS pages still resolve, and guards against SSRF.

Do I need the browser stack? No. Search and the default fetch path need only mcp + anyio. The camoufox/playwright browser is the optional [render] extra, used only for render="always".

Publishing

Status: ✅ on PyPI · ✅ GitHub Release v0.1.0 · ⬜ official MCP Registry (next).

Remaining step to maximize agent discoverability (see PUBLISHING.md for the full runbook):

• Official MCP Registry (registry.modelcontextprotocol.io) — the one high-leverage listing; aggregators (PulseMCP, Glama, mcp.so, Smithery) ingest from it. Publish server.json with mcp-publisher (GitHub OAuth, namespace io.github.velvetsp/...; authorize the publisher app for the VelvetSP org).

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome at https://github.com/VelvetSP/web-retrieval-mcp. The server is a single module (src/web_retrieval_mcp/server.py); stdout is JSON-RPC only — keep all diagnostics on stderr.

License

MIT © VelvetSP

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