Perplexity

You can run a Perplexity MCP Server locally to bridge Claude’s MCP client with Perplexity AI, enabling secure tool-based interactions with Perplexity models from Claude.

How to use

Start the Perplexity MCP Server locally and point your MCP client to the server via a standard stdio MCP connection. The server exposes two tools you can invoke from Claude: perplexity_chat for full chat history based interactions, and perplexity_ask for quick single-query questions. Use the tools by calling them through the MCP protocol from your Claude client as you would with any other MCP endpoint.

To use the tools, you’ll select perplexity_chat when you need a streaming-like chat with history or perplexity_ask for a fast one-off answer. Each tool requires specific parameters validated by the server and mapped into Claude’s MCP interface.

How to install

Prerequisites: you need Node.js installed on your machine. You may also want a compatible shell to run commands.

Clone the server repository and install dependencies:

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/perplexity-mcp-server.git
cd perplexity-mcp-server

npm install

Create your configuration file with your Perplexity API key as shown in the environment setup.

PERPLEXITY_API_KEY=your-api-key-here

Build and start the server locally:

npm run build
npm run dev

Additional sections

Configuration and runtime details are provided here to help you connect Claude to Perplexity using MCP. The server runs as a local process and communicates over the MCP protocol.

Example MCP connection configuration for Claude Desktop is shown below. This starts the server as a local stdio process and supplies the required environment variable.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "perplexity": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["path\\to\\perplexity-mcp-server\\dist\\index.js"],
      "env": {
        "PERPLEXITY_API_KEY": "YOUR_PERPLEXITY_API_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

Security and reliability considerations: API keys should be kept secret and loaded from environment variables. The server performs input validation for all tool parameters and sanitizes error messages before returning them to clients. It uses a modular tool system with type-safe handlers and supports clean shutdown on process signals.

Troubleshooting tips: ensure the Perplexity API key is valid, check that the server process is running and that the MCP client points to the correct stdio path, and review logs for errors related to tool execution or network connectivity.

Available tools

perplexity_chat

Generate a chat completion using Perplexity AI with full message history.

perplexity_ask

Send a simple query to Perplexity AI for a quick answer.