Web Researcher MCP

Your AI research assistant that cites real sources and stays honest. Search the entire web or narrow it down to just the sites you trust; medical journals, court databases, news outlets, academic papers.

People who need web scraping tools inside Claude, Cursor, VS Code, or another MCP client. The project is written in Go.

VERIFIED ACTIVE

LAST COMMIT 2026-08-25 · ★ 52 · #49 OF 78 MAINTAINED WEB SCRAPING · VERIFIED 2026-08-25

MIT · Go servers · how we verify → /methodology

01 · Install Web Researcher MCP

before you install - you'll need

Set GOOGLE_CUSTOM_SEARCH_API_KEY, GOOGLE_CUSTOM_SEARCH_ID, SEARCH_PROVIDER, BRAVE_API_KEY, INSTALL_DIR, SEARCH_ROUTING, SERPER_API_KEY, SEARXNG_URL, EXA_API_KEY, CUSTOM_LENSES_PATH, OAUTH_ISSUER_URL, OAUTH_AUDIENCE before connecting.

Docker

docker run -i --rm ghcr.io/zoharbabin/web-researcher-mcp:1.49.1

Claude Desktop - add to config

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zoharbabin-web-researcher-mcp": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "ghcr.io/zoharbabin/web-researcher-mcp:1.49.1"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Using another client? Same JSON, different key

Claude Desktop · mcpServers

Cursor · mcpServers

VS Code · servers

Windsurf · mcpServers

Zed · context_servers

Cline · mcpServers

Roo Code · mcpServers

Continue · mcpServers

LibreChat · mcpServers

Gemini CLI · mcpServers

Codex CLI · mcp_servers

Full setup guides: every client.

02 · Evidence

Security posture

What to check before giving this server access to your agent - from the registry, GitHub, and our own probes. We don't score safety; we show what's verifiable.

runs as container (OCI image) - can be sandboxed away from your filesystem

license MIT - declared in the repository

registry namespace io.github.zoharbabin is GitHub-verified and matches the repo owner

03 · What Web Researcher MCP can do

Prose above is summarized from the project's README and registry record - no invented capabilities.

Latest releases

v1.49.1 · 2026-08-20

invert author names to surname-first in APA/MLA citations (#615) (@zoharbabin) · normalize spelling variants + weight claim's own number in claimSignal (#612) (@zoharbabin) · split bare comma-separated author lists…

v1.49.0 · 2026-08-19

Milestone v1.49.0 - Research Intelligence II closes 6 issues across legal_search, clinical_search, company_recon, verify_citation/scrape_page, the scraper's browser pool, and a new cost-tracking layer for…

v1.48.0 · 2026-08-08

New Features · add SLSA build provenance attestation (L2+L3) (#560) (@zoharbabin) · add per-tenant scrape concurrency partitioning (#564) (@zoharbabin) · replace prose-only closed-vocabulary params with real JSON…

04 · Who maintains Web Researcher MCP

Web Researcher MCP is maintained by zoharbabin. We track 3 MCP servers from zoharbabin - 2 actively maintained, 86 combined GitHub stars, oldest repo from May 2025.

05 · Facts

repository: github.com/zoharbabin/web-researcher-mcp
category: web scraping - ranked #49 of 78 actively-maintained web scraping servers as of 2026-08-25.
release cadence: 10+ releases in the last 90 days (latest 2026-08-20)
registry: io.github.zoharbabin/web-researcher-mcp (active, first published 2026-05-19 · 69 versions)
packages: oci:ghcr.io/zoharbabin/web-researcher-mcp:1.49.1 · oci:docker.io/zoharbabin/web-researcher-mcp:1.49.1

06 · Web Researcher MCP FAQ

What is Web Researcher MCP?

Is Web Researcher MCP still maintained?

Yes - as of 2026-08-25, its last commit was 2026-08-25 and it shipped 10+ releases in the last 90 days. We re-verify nightly.

How do I install Web Researcher MCP?

Run `docker run -i --rm ghcr.io/zoharbabin/web-researcher-mcp:1.49.1`. The README documents 12 environment variables (GOOGLE_CUSTOM_SEARCH_API_KEY, GOOGLE_CUSTOM_SEARCH_ID, SEARCH_PROVIDER…) to set first. Set GOOGLE_CUSTOM_SEARCH_API_KEY, GOOGLE_CUSTOM_SEARCH_ID, SEARCH_PROVIDER, BRAVE_API_KEY, INSTALL_DIR, SEARCH_ROUTING, SERPER_API_KEY, SEARXNG_URL, EXA_API_KEY, CUSTOM_LENSES_PATH, OAUTH_ISSUER_URL, OAUTH_AUDIENCE before connecting. You can also paste the ready-made client config above.

07 · Alternatives to Web Researcher MCP

Alternatives to Web Researcher MCP

Maintained web scraping servers if Web Researcher MCP isn't the fit.

Pairs well with

Servers that cover what Web Researcher MCP doesn't - only shown when the pairing reason fits the companion.

More web scraping MCP servers · Librecrawl - Technical SEO Audit MCP Server · Google News & Trends MCP · Web Reaper · Spotifyscraper

More Go MCP servers · Seamless · ToolTrust Scanner · Dibs · Dir MCP · Git Courer · see all