The Apify MCP server enables your AI agents to extract data from social media, search engines, maps, e-commerce sites, or any other website using thousands of ready-made scrapers, crawlers, and automation tools available on the Apify Store.
# Add to your Claude Code skills
git clone https://github.com/apify/apify-mcp-server
README.md
The Apify Model Context Protocol (MCP) server at mcp.apify.com enables your AI agents to extract data from social media, search engines, maps, e-commerce sites, and any other website using thousands of ready-made scrapers, crawlers, and automation tools from Apify Store. It supports OAuth, allowing you to connect from clients like Claude.ai or Visual Studio Code using just the URL.
🚀 Use the hosted Apify MCP Server!
For the best experience, connect your AI assistant to our hosted server at https://mcp.apify.com. The hosted server supports the latest features - including output schema inference for structured Actor results - that are not available when running locally via stdio.
💰 The server also supports agentic payments via x402 and Skyfire, allowing AI agents to pay for Actor runs without an API token.
Apify MCP Server is compatible with Claude Code, Claude.ai, Cursor, VS Code and any client that adheres to the Model Context Protocol.
Check out the MCP clients section for more details or visit the MCP configuration page.
Use Instagram Scraper to scrape Instagram posts, profiles, places, photos, and comments.
Use RAG Web Browser to search the web, scrape the top N URLs, and return their content.
Video tutorial: Integrate 8,000+ Apify Actors and Agents with Claude
🚀 Quickstart
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 streamable transport
Standard Input/Output (stdio): Ideal for local integrations and command-line tools like the Claude for Desktop client.
Set the MCP client server command to npx @apify/actors-mcp-server and the APIFY_TOKEN environment variable to your Apify API token.
See npx @apify/actors-mcp-server --help for more options.
You can find detailed instructions for setting up the MCP server in the Apify documentation.
⚠️ SSE transport deprecation on April 1, 2026
Update your MCP client config before April 1, 2026.
Apify MCP Server is dropping Server-Sent Events (SSE) transport in favor of Streamable HTTP, in line with the official MCP spec.
Go to mcp.apify.com to update the installation for your client of choice, with a valid endpoint.
🤖 MCP clients
Apify MCP Server is compatible with any MCP client that adheres to the Model Context Protocol, but the level of support for dynamic tool discovery and other features may vary between clients.
Smart tool selection based on client capabilities:
When the actors tool category is requested, the server intelligently selects the most appropriate Actor-related tools based on the client's capabilities:
Clients with dynamic tool support (e.g., Claude.ai web, VS Code Genie): The server provides the add-actor tool instead of call-actor. This allows for a better user experience where users can dynamically discover and add new Actors as tools during their conversation.
Clients with limited dynamic tool support (e.g., Claude Desktop): The server provides the standard call-actor tool along with other Actor category tools, ensuring compatibility while maintaining functionality.
This interactive, chat-like interface provides an easy way to explore the capabilities of Apify MCP without any local setup.
Sign in with your Apify account and start experimenting with web scraping, data extraction, and automation tools!
Or use the MCP bundle file (formerly known as Anthropic Desktop extension file, or DXT) for one-click installation: Apify MCP Server MCPB file
💰 Agentic payments
You can pay for Actor runs without an Apify API token using either x402 or Skyfire.
x402 pays with USDC on Base and does not require a separate platform account. It is fully supported by mcpc (npm install -g @apify/mcpc). We use mcpc because it is one of the few MCP clients that supports the latest features and the x402 protocol natively.
Skyfire pays with PAY tokens and requires a Skyfire account with a funded wallet. It does not require a special MCP client; the entire payment flow is handled directly through the MCP tool call parameters.
How agentic payments work
Actor run costs vary, so both payment methods use a prepaid balance model. The payment flow happens in four steps:
Discovery: The agent discovers Actors with search-actors or fetch-actor-details. Those calls are free.
Prepayment: Before running a paid Actor tool, the agent funds a prepaid balance.
x402: mcpc automatically signs a $1.00 USDC transaction.
Skyfire: The agent creates a PAY token (minimum $5.00) using Skyfire's create-pay-token tool.
The agent harness performance optimization system. Skills, instincts, memory, security, and research-first development for Claude Code, Codex, Opencode, Cursor and beyond.
