How to Set Up Firecrawl MCP in Cursor (Step by Step)

2026-08-07 · by bixzell

How to Set Up Firecrawl MCP in Cursor (Step by Step)

Firecrawl’s MCP server is hosted — there is no local server to install. You point Cursor at a URL and the scrape, search and interact tools show up. The keyless free tier even works without an API key.

7,148⭐ projects on GitHub — one of the most-used scraping servers in the ecosystem.

Prerequisites

  • Cursor (any recent version with remote MCP support)
  • No local install, no Node, no npm

Step 1 — Add the remote server

In Cursor, open Settings → MCP (or the command palette → cursor mcp), then add a remote / HTTP server:

  • Name: firecrawl
  • Type: http (Streamable HTTP)
  • URL: https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/v2/mcp

That’s the whole install. The server is served by Firecrawl, so it works from any machine.

Step 2 — Use the keyless free tier (or connect a key)

On the keyless tier, three tools work immediately, rate-limited:

  • scrape — turn any URL into clean markdown
  • search — web search with full page content
  • interact — operate pages (click, navigate)

Tools like crawl, map, agent and extract need an account. Two ways to connect:

  • OAuth (recommended for interactive use): use the OAuth URL https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/v2/mcp-oauth and sign in once.
  • API key: keep the base URL and set the header Authorization: Bearer <FIRECRAWL_API_KEY> in the MCP server config.

There is also a read-only search-only endpoint at https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/v2/mcp-search if you only want search.

Step 3 — Verify

  1. Toggle the server on in MCP settings.
  2. It should show a green connected state.
  3. Test with: “Scrape https://example.com and summarize it.”

If tools appear and run, you’re done. For the full client matrix (Claude Desktop, VS Code, Codex, Windsurf), see the Firecrawl compatibility page.

Troubleshooting

Symptom Fix
Server not connecting Double-check the URL is exactly https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/v2/mcp (no trailing slash issues) and the type is HTTP.
crawl / map / agent require auth Those tools need an account — use the OAuth URL or add an API key header.
Rate limited on keyless tier Sign up and add a key to raise limits.
Empty results on JS-heavy pages Enable the headless browser crawl option in the Firecrawl dashboard — plain scrapes miss client-rendered content.

Next steps