beginner2 min· claude-desktop · mcp · siftq

Give Claude Desktop live web search via MCP

Zero code — drop a JSON config and Claude can search the web in every chat.

Prerequisites

$Claude Desktop installed (claude.ai/download)
$Node.js 18+ on PATH
$SiftQ API key (mk-...)

How it works

MCP — the Model Context Protocol — is Anthropic's open standard for connecting LLM clients to external tools. SiftQ ships an MCP server, so once you wire the config below into Claude Desktop, Claude can autonomously decide to search the web during any conversation. No prompt engineering required — the tool description guides Claude to pick the right scope (web, news, scholar, etc.) based on what the user asks.

The recipe

claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "siftq": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@siftq/mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "SIFTQ_API_KEY": "mk-YOUR_KEY_HERE"
      }
    }
  }
}

Variations

macOS path

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Windows path

%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

Use in Cursor / Cline

Both editors are MCP-compatible. Use the same JSON block in their respective MCP config locations.

Self-host the server

The MCP server is open source at github.com/siftq/mcp-server. Clone, point Claude at the local binary, and audit before deploy.

Keep cooking

SiftQ as a LangChain agent tool

Wrap SiftQ in @tool, hand it to a ReAct agent, watch it search autonomously.

Test this query in the SiftQ API playground →