📖 Overview
The Oxylabs MCP server provides a bridge between AI models and the web. It enables them to scrape any URL, render JavaScript-heavy pages, extract and format content for AI use, manage CAPTCHA, and access geo-restricted web data from 195+ countries.
It is built on the Model Context Protocol (MCP), the open standard for connecting AI assistants to external tools and data.
🛠️ MCP Tools
Oxylabs MCP provides two sets of tools that can be used together or independently:
Oxylabs Web Scraper API tools
- universal_scraper: scrapes any URL, with optional JavaScript rendering, geo-targeting, and Markdown/HTML/links output;
- google_search_scraper: extracts results from Google Search, with optional parsing into structured JSON;
- amazon_search_scraper: scrapes Amazon search result pages, with optional parsing into structured JSON;
- amazon_product_scraper: extracts data from individual Amazon product pages.
Oxylabs AI Studio tools
- ai_scraper: scrapes content from any URL with AI-powered extraction, in JSON, CSV, Markdown, or TOON format;
- ai_crawler: crawls a website from a starting URL based on a prompt and collects data across multiple pages;
- ai_browser_agent: controls a real browser based on a prompt — navigates, clicks, fills forms — and returns the result;
- ai_search: searches the web and optionally returns Markdown content of each result;
- ai_map: maps a website's URLs, filtered by keywords or a prompt;
- generate_schema: generates an OpenAPI-format JSON schema for structured extraction with the AI tools above.
✅ Prerequisites
Before you begin, make sure you have at least one of the following:
- Oxylabs Web Scraper API account: obtain your username and password from Oxylabs (1-week free trial available);
- Oxylabs AI Studio API key: obtain your API key from Oxylabs AI Studio (1000 credits free).
To run the server locally (Option 2 below) you will also need the uv package manager:
# macOS and Linux
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
# Windows
powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"
📦 Configuration
There are two ways to use the server: connect to the hosted instance (no installation)
or run it locally with credentials in environment variables.
Option 1: Hosted server (no installation)
Oxylabs runs a hosted MCP server at:
https://mcp.oxylabs.io/mcp
Credentials are passed with request headers:
| Credential | Header |
|---|
| Web Scraper API | Authorization: Basic <base64(username:password)> |
| Web Scraper API (alternative) | X-Oxylabs-Username and X-Oxylabs-Password |
| AI Studio | X-Oxylabs-AI-Studio-Api-Key |
Setup with Claude Code:
claude mcp add --transport http oxylabs https://mcp.oxylabs.io/mcp \
--header "Authorization: Basic $(echo -n 'YOUR_USERNAME:YOUR_PASSWORD' | base64)" \
--header "X-Oxylabs-AI-Studio-Api-Key: YOUR_API_KEY"
Setup with Cursor or any client that supports remote MCP servers with custom headers:
{
"mcpServers": {
"oxylabs": {
"url": "https://mcp.oxylabs.io/mcp",
"headers": {
"Authorization": "Basic <base64 of username:password>",
"X-Oxylabs-AI-Studio-Api-Key": "YOUR_API_KEY"
}
}
}
}
The server is also listed on Smithery.
Note: clients that only support OAuth for remote servers (for example, adding a custom
connector in the claude.ai web UI) cannot pass headers yet — OAuth sign-in is on our roadmap.
Use the local setup below with those clients in the meantime.
Option 2: Run locally
Environment variables
Oxylabs MCP server supports the following environment variables:
| Name | Description | Default |
|---|
OXYLABS_USERNAME | Your Oxylabs Web Scraper API username | |
OXYLABS_PASSWORD | Your Oxylabs Web Scraper API password | |
OXYLABS_AI_STUDIO_API_KEY | Your Oxylabs AI Studio API key | |
LOG_LEVEL | Log level for the logs returned to the client | INFO |
Based on the provided credentials, the server automatically exposes the corresponding tools:
- If only
OXYLABS_USERNAME and OXYLABS_PASSWORD are provided, the server exposes the Web Scraper API tools;
- If only
OXYLABS_AI_STUDIO_API_KEY is provided, the server exposes the AI Studio tools;
- If all three are provided, the server exposes all tools.
❗ Important: only set the environment variables you have real credentials for.
Leaving placeholder values will result in exposed tools that do not work.
Configure with uvx
Installs the package from PyPI and runs it automatically:
{
"mcpServers": {
"oxylabs": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": ["oxylabs-mcp"],
"env": {
"OXYLABS_USERNAME": "YOUR_USERNAME",
"OXYLABS_PASSWORD": "YOUR_PASSWORD",
"OXYLABS_AI_STUDIO_API_KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY"
}
}
}
}
Configure with a local checkout
Useful for development — runs the server from a local clone of this repository:
{
"mcpServers": {
"oxylabs": {
"command": "uv",
"args": [
"--directory",
"/<absolute-path-to-folder>/oxylabs-mcp",
"run",
"oxylabs-mcp"
],
"env": {
"OXYLABS_USERNAME": "YOUR_USERNAME",
"OXYLABS_PASSWORD": "YOUR_PASSWORD",
"OXYLABS_AI_STUDIO_API_KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY"
}
}
}
}
Running as a remote HTTP server (self-hosting)
The server also supports the MCP streamable-HTTP transport. Start it with:
MCP_TRANSPORT=streamable-http MCP_HOST=0.0.0.0 MCP_PORT=8000 uvx oxylabs-mcp
With the HTTP transport, credentials are passed per request instead of environment variables:
| Credential | How to pass it |
|---|
| Web Scraper API | Authorization: Basic <base64(username:password)> (standard HTTP Basic auth) |
| Web Scraper API (alternative) | X-Oxylabs-Username and X-Oxylabs-Password headers |
| AI Studio | X-Oxylabs-AI-Studio-Api-Key header |
Example client configuration:
{
"mcpServers": {
"oxylabs": {
"url": "https://your-host:8000/mcp",
"headers": {
"Authorization": "Basic <base64 of username:password>",
"X-Oxylabs-AI-Studio-Api-Key": "YOUR_API_KEY"
}
}
}
}
All tools are always listed regardless of provided credentials; calling a tool without the
credentials it needs returns an error message explaining exactly what to configure.
📝 Logging
The server provides additional information about the tool calls in notification/message events:
{
"method": "notifications/message",
"params": {
"level": "info",
"data": "Create job with params: {\"url\": \"https://ip.oxylabs.io\"}"
}
}
{
"method": "notifications/message",
"params": {
"level": "info",
"data": "Job info: job_id=7333113830223918081 job_status=done"
}
}
{
"method": "notifications/message",
"params": {
"level": "error",
"data": "Error: request to Oxylabs API failed"
}
}
✨ Key Features
- Extract data from any URL, including complex single-page applications
- Fully render dynamic websites using headless browser support
- Choose full JavaScript rendering, HTML-only, or none
- Emulate Mobile and Desktop viewports for realistic rendering
- Automatically clean and convert HTML to Markdown for improved readability
- Use automated parsers for popular targets like Google, Amazon, and more
- Navigate sophisticated automated request management systems with high success rate
- Reliably scrape even the most complex websites
- Get automatically rotating IPs from a proxy pool covering 195+ countries
- Set rendering and parsing options if needed
- Feed data directly into AI models or analytics tools
- Works on macOS, Windows, and Linux
- Comprehensive error handling and reporting
- Smart rate limiting and request management
Why Oxylabs MCP? 🕸️ ➜ 📦 ➜ 🤖
Imagine telling your LLM "Summarise the latest Hacker News discussion about GPT‑5" – and it simply answers.
The Oxylabs MCP server makes that happen by doing the boring parts for you:
| What Oxylabs MCP does | Why it matters to you |
|---|
| Manages automated request walls with the Oxylabs global proxy network | Enables website access and anonymity |
| Renders JavaScript in headless Chrome | Single‑page apps, sorted |
| Cleans HTML → Markdown | Drop straight into vector DBs or prompts |
| Optional structured parsers (Google, Amazon, etc.) | One‑line access to popular targets |
🛡️ License
Distributed under the MIT License – see LICENSE for details.
About Oxylabs
Established in 2015, Oxylabs is a market-leading web intelligence collection
platform, driven by the highest business, ethics, and compliance standards,
enabling companies worldwide to unlock data-driven insights.
mcp-name: io.oxylabs/oxylabs-mcp
Solutions made based on this MCP:
Michelin Detour