Brave Search MCP Server: Tools, Setup and Security

The Brave Search MCP server lets an AI app search the web through the Brave Search API. It covers web, news, image, video, local and place search. It also offers AI summaries and pre-extracted "LLM context." Brave publishes it on GitHub as @brave/brave-search-mcp-server, and it replaced an older version that lived in the MCP project's reference repository.

Checked against: Brave Search MCP Server README on 28 October 2026. eSEOspace did not install or test this server.

At a glance

What it can do

The README documents these tools:

• brave_web_search: web search with filters for country, language, freshness, safe search and result types. It supports Goggles for custom re-ranking.
• brave_local_search: local businesses and places. The README notes it "Requires Pro plan for full local search capabilities" and falls back to web search otherwise.
• brave_video_search: videos with metadata and thumbnails.
• brave_image_search: images with URLs and dimensions. Version 2.x stopped returning base64 image data.
• brave_news_search: current news, defaulting to the last 24 hours.
• brave_summarizer: AI summaries. You first run a web search with summary: true, then pass the returned key.
• brave_place_search: points of interest near coordinates or a named location.
• brave_llm_context: pre-extracted web content for grounding and RAG (retrieval-augmented generation), with token and snippet limits.

The MCP project's servers repository lists its own old Brave Search server as archived. It says that one "Has been replaced by the official server."

How to connect it

First get a key. The README says to sign up for a Brave Search API account, choose a plan and generate a key in the developer dashboard.

This is the README's Claude Desktop config using Docker:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brave-search": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": ["run", "-i", "--rm", "-e", "BRAVE_API_KEY", "docker.io/mcp/brave-search"],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY_HERE"
      }
    }
  }
}

The README also gives an npx config and VS Code configs. The VS Code version uses a password-type input so the key is prompted for rather than typed into the file.

Security notes

Read-only tools. Every documented tool performs a search. None change data.

Key storage. BRAVE_API_KEY_FILE lets you read the key from a mounted file, which the README says suits Docker secrets. That keeps keys out of config files. See MCP secret leakage.

HTTP mode. If you run HTTP mode, the server binds to 127.0.0.1 by default. The README says to set 0.0.0.0 "Only do this on a trusted network." Browser requests from unlisted origins are rejected with HTTP 403, and BRAVE_MCP_ALLOWED_HOSTS limits accepted Host headers. Those checks help block DNS rebinding attacks.

Fewer tools. Use BRAVE_MCP_ENABLED_TOOLS to expose only what you need. Fewer tools means less for a confused model to misuse.

Data handling. Brave's Search API page says queries are not shared or used for training and describes zero data retention as built in. Enterprise plans add "full-funnel" zero data retention.

Untrusted content. Results come from the open web. Treat them as untrusted, as covered in prompt injection through MCP tool results and the MCP security center.

Pricing

As of October 2026, Brave's API page lists:

The page says it uses prepaid credits rather than subscriptions.

Alternatives

• Exa MCP server: hosted, with keyless free use.
• Tavily MCP server: hosted remote server with OAuth.
• Perplexity MCP server: search plus synthesized answers and research.

More on our MCP server profiles hub.

Next step

Brave runs its own index, so it is worth checking how your site appears there. Our MCP marketing team helps brands show up in the search tools AI agents use.

Frequently asked questions