Brave Search MCP Server

The Brave Search MCP Server provides comprehensive access to the Brave Search API, enabling powerful web search capabilities directly within your MCP-enabled applications. This server offers specialized search tools for web results, news, videos, discussions, and locations, along with AI-powered summaries and detailed point-of-interest information. Whether you need general web search, targeted news queries, or local business details, this server delivers rich, privacy-focused search results with extensive filtering and customization options.

Overview

This MCP server acts as a bridge between your applications and Brave Search, one of the most privacy-respecting search engines available. It exposes a full suite of search capabilities that go beyond simple web queries, including specialized searches for different content types, location-based searches with detailed POI information, and AI-generated summaries to help quickly digest search results.

The server is designed to handle everything from basic search queries to complex, multi-parameter searches with precise control over result types, localization, freshness filters, and content safety settings. It supports pagination, multiple language and regional settings, and provides structured data that's easy to process and present.

Tools

web_search

Performs comprehensive web searches using the full Brave Search API with complete parameter control. This is the most versatile search tool, returning multiple result types including web pages, discussions, FAQs, news articles, videos, locations, and information boxes.

Parameters:

q (required): Your search query, up to 400 characters or 50 words
count: Number of results to return (1-20, default varies)
offset: Pagination offset for results (0-9)
country: Two-character country code for localized results (e.g., US, GB, DE, FR)
search_lang: Language code for search results (e.g., en, es, fr, de)
ui_lang: Language for UI elements (e.g., en-US, es-ES)
safesearch: Content filtering level - "off", "moderate", or "strict"
freshness: Time-based filter - "pd" (past day), "pw" (past week), "pm" (past month), "py" (past year), or custom date range in YYYY-MM-DDtoYYYY-MM-DD format
result_filter: Comma-separated list to include only specific result types: discussions, faq, infobox, news, query, summarizer, videos, web, locations
goggles: List of Goggle URLs for custom search result re-ranking
goggles_id: Single Goggle ID for custom re-ranking (deprecated, use goggles instead)
units: Measurement system - "metric" or "imperial"
spellcheck: Enable or disable spell checking for queries
text_decorations: Include search term highlighting in result snippets
extra_snippets: Request up to 5 additional alternative excerpts per result
summary: Enable AI summary key generation for result summarization

search_with_summary

A convenience tool specifically designed for searches where you want AI-powered summaries of the results. This automatically enables summary generation and returns a summarizer key that can be used to generate concise overviews of search findings.

Parameters:

q (required): Search query, up to 400 characters
count: Number of results (1-20)
offset: Pagination offset (0-9)
country: Two-character country code
search_lang: Search language code
safesearch: Content filtering - "off", "moderate", or "strict"

local_poi_search

Retrieves detailed information about specific locations using their temporary IDs. Location IDs are valid for 8 hours after being obtained from a location search and can be queried in batches of up to 20 locations at once. Returns comprehensive POI data including addresses, coordinates, ratings, reviews, opening hours, and contact information.

Parameters:

ids (required): Array of location IDs (1-20 IDs, obtained from location searches)
units: Measurement units - "metric" or "imperial"
ui_lang: Language for UI elements
search_lang: Search language code

local_descriptions_search

Fetches AI-generated descriptions for specific locations using their temporary IDs. Like POI searches, these IDs are valid for 8 hours and support batch queries of up to 20 locations. Perfect for getting natural language summaries of businesses, landmarks, or points of interest.

Parameters:

ids (required): Array of location IDs (1-20 IDs)
ui_lang: Language for UI elements
search_lang: Search language code

search_news

Specialized search tool focused exclusively on news articles. Returns news results with rich metadata including source information, publication dates, article thumbnails, and structured content that's optimized for news presentation.

Parameters:

q (required): Search query, up to 400 characters
count: Number of results (1-20)
offset: Pagination offset (0-9)
country: Two-character country code
search_lang: Search language code
freshness: Time filter - "pd", "pw", "pm", or "py"

search_videos

Dedicated video search tool that returns video content from across the web. Results include metadata such as video duration, view counts, creator information, thumbnails, and platform details, making it easy to present video options to users.

Parameters:

q (required): Search query, up to 400 characters
count: Number of results (1-20)
offset: Pagination offset (0-9)
country: Two-character country code
search_lang: Search language code

search_discussions

Finds forum posts, community discussions, and conversation threads from various discussion platforms. Ideal for discovering user opinions, troubleshooting information, and community insights on any topic.

Parameters:

q (required): Search query, up to 400 characters
count: Number of results (1-20)
offset: Pagination offset (0-9)
country: Two-character country code
search_lang: Search language code

search_locations

Searches specifically for physical locations and points of interest. Returns structured location data including business names, addresses, geographic coordinates, ratings, review counts, opening hours, and other location-specific metadata.

Parameters:

q (required): Search query, up to 400 characters
count: Number of results (1-20)
offset: Pagination offset (0-9)
country: Two-character country code
search_lang: Search language code
units: Measurement units - "metric" or "imperial"

Resource Templates

search_result

Access complete search results for any query with default parameters using a simple URI pattern.

URI Pattern: brave://search/{query}

search_result_filtered

Access filtered search results limited to specific content types including web, news, videos, discussions, locations, FAQ, or infobox results.

URI Pattern: brave://search/{query}/filter/{filter_type}

Available filters: web, news, videos, discussions, locations, faq, infobox

search_result_paginated

Access specific pages of search results with automatic pagination handling. Each page contains up to 20 results, with a maximum of 10 pages available.

URI Pattern: brave://search/{query}/page/{page_number}

Valid page numbers: 1-10

location_details

Access detailed point-of-interest information for a specific location using its temporary ID. Remember that location IDs expire after 8 hours.

URI Pattern: brave://location/{location_id}

location_description

Retrieve AI-generated descriptions for a specific location using its temporary ID. Provides natural language summaries of businesses and places.

URI Pattern: brave://location/{location_id}/description

search_result_with_context

Access localized search results with specific country and language context, ensuring results are tailored to regional preferences and language requirements.

URI Pattern: brave://search/{query}/context/{country}/{language}

Key Features

Comprehensive Search Coverage: Access web pages, news articles, videos, forum discussions, and local businesses all from a single server with specialized tools for each content type.

Privacy-Focused: Leverage Brave Search's privacy-first approach, ensuring user queries aren't tracked or sold to advertisers.

Advanced Filtering: Control exactly what types of results you receive with granular filters, freshness controls, and safe search options.

Localization Support: Search in multiple languages and regions with proper localization for both search results and UI elements.

AI-Powered Summaries: Generate concise summaries of search results to help users quickly understand information without reading through multiple sources.

Location Intelligence: Get detailed information about physical locations including ratings, hours, contact details, and AI-generated descriptions.

Flexible Pagination: Navigate through large result sets efficiently with offset-based pagination supporting up to 200 results per query.

Custom Re-ranking: Use Brave's Goggles feature to apply custom ranking algorithms and filter bubbles to search results.

Batch Operations: Query up to 20 locations simultaneously for efficient data retrieval when working with multiple POIs.

Use Cases

This MCP server is ideal for applications that need to integrate search capabilities, including research assistants, content aggregators, travel planning tools, news monitoring systems, local business directories, and any application where users need to discover information from across the web. The specialized search tools make it particularly valuable for applications that need to present different types of content in distinct ways, while the location features are perfect for travel, dining, and local discovery applications.