String Web Access

String AI Web Access MCP Server

The official Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for String AI's Web Access API. Search the web, fetch any URL or send it a request, and map a site's URLs — all returned as clean, LLM-ready Markdown. Connect any MCP-compatible client — VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Claude Desktop, and more.

Tools

web_access_search and web_access_product_help are read-only. The npm package's fetch can send writes through method and body; hosted /v1/mcp and /v2/mcp fetch also accept browser actions that can modify destination data. web_access_request sends writes, and web_access_sitemap creates billed crawl jobs.

The six-tool shape above is what the hosted server at https://mcp.usestring.ai/v1/mcp

serves. The npm package ships five of them: it includes product help and failure reporting but

omits web_access_request, sending writes through web_access_fetch's method and body

parameters instead.

web_access_sitemap — sitemap crawl jobs

A crawl is a two-phase, asynchronous quote → approve → poll → read job: nothing is crawled or billed until the quote is explicitly approved.

web_access_report — failure diagnostics

Reporting is optional and best-effort. Continue useful recovery first. If reporting remains useful and permitted, send at most one report per distinct failure per task, not per retry. Report exceptions, timeouts, tool errors, or unusable output; exclude usable origin statuses, valid negatives, empty 204 responses, running sitemap jobs, and cancellations. Each reporting attempt has a two-second deadline.

Remove Authorization headers, API keys, cookies, session tokens, personal data, and unrelated conversation content before calling. The server redacts common credential forms again. Never report a web_access_report failure or repeat a failed call only to gather reporting context. Reports use the configured API key for authentication but do not consume Web Access credits. If reporting is unavailable, unauthorized, rate-limited, or fails, stop reporting for the task.

Quick Start

Run with npx

env STRING_AI_API_KEY=your-key npx @usestring/mcp

Install globally

npm install -g @usestring/mcp

STRING_AI_API_KEY=your-key string-ai-mcp

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/usestring/string-ai-mcp.git

cd string-ai-mcp npm install npm run build STRING_AI_API_KEY=your-key node build/index.js

Environment Variables

Client Configuration

VS Code

Press Ctrl+Shift+P → Preferences: Open User Settings (JSON) and add:

{

"inputs": [ { "type": "promptString", "id": "stringAiKey", "description": "String AI API Key", "password": true } ], "servers": { "string-ai": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@usestring/mcp"], "env": { "STRING_AI_API_KEY": "${input:stringAiKey}" } } } }

Or add a .vscode/mcp.json file to share the configuration with your team.

Cursor

Open Settings → Features → MCP Servers → + Add new global MCP server and paste:

{

"mcpServers": { "string-ai": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@usestring/mcp"], "env": { "STRING_AI_API_KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY" } } } }

Windsurf

Add to ~/.codeium/windsurf/model_config.json:

{

"mcpServers": { "string-ai": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@usestring/mcp"], "env": { "STRING_AI_API_KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY" } } } }

Claude Desktop

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{

"mcpServers": { "string-ai": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@usestring/mcp"], "env": { "STRING_AI_API_KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY" } } } }

Testing with the MCP Inspector

The MCP Inspector lets you test your server interactively in a browser:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector node build/index.js

Then open http://127.0.0.1:6274, connect via stdio, and try calling each tool from the UI.

How It Works

┌──────────────────┐   stdio (JSON-RPC)   ┌──────────────────┐   HTTPS   ┌──────────────────┐

│ VS Code / Cursor │ ◄──────────────────► │ String AI │ ────────► │ String AI │ │ Windsurf / Claude│ │ Web Access MCP │ │ Web Access API │ └──────────────────┘ └──────────────────┘ └──────────────────┘

1. The IDE spawns this server as a child process and communicates over stdio.
2. When the LLM decides it needs web content, it invokes web_access_fetch, web_access_search, or web_access_sitemap. Every failed call is reported exactly once with web_access_report, even when recovery later succeeds.
3. This server forwards the request to String AI's Web Access API (using your API key from the environment) and returns the result to the LLM.

About String AI

String AI provides a web access API that returns any page as clean, LLM-ready Markdown. Get your API key at usestring.ai.

License

MIT

Security

Please report security vulnerabilities privately as described in SECURITY.md.

Maintenance and releases

This server may remain unchanged while its tools meet the documented contract. Maintenance includes checking runtime and MCP compatibility, investigating reported issues, and releasing fixes when needed. Commit frequency alone does not establish whether the server works.

Before shipping a change, run npm test and node scripts/check-versions.mjs. The package declares its supported Node.js versions in package.json; CI builds with Node.js 22. Report compatibility problems through GitHub issues.

The publish workflow records each published npm version as a GitHub release, tagged at the source commit recorded in the npm package metadata. Release notes describe the changes. The release job checks npm directly, so a registry publication failure does not hide a version that users can already install. A manual workflow run can record a missing GitHub release for the current published version without republishing the package or changing its version.

For a historical version whose source predates workflow changes, a maintainer may need to create its source tag first: GitHub limits the workflow token's ability to target older workflow history. The release job verifies that an existing tag matches the published package's source before using it.