Configuration

Configuration

web-search-mcp uses environment variables for configuration, managed via pydantic-settings.

Environment Variables

Variable	Description	Required	Default
EXA_API_KEY	API key for Exa search	Yes (for search_exa)	None
GROQ_API_KEY	API key for Groq services	Yes (for Groq tools)	None
AUTH_TOKEN / CT0	X/Twitter auth cookie	Yes (for search_x)	None
GITHUB_TOKEN	GitHub personal access token	No (for higher API limits)	None

Setup

You can set these variables in your shell or use a .env file:

export GROQ_API_KEY="your_api_key_here"

X/Twitter Authentication

search_x requires AUTH_TOKEN and CT0 cookies extracted from X:

export AUTH_TOKEN="your_auth_token_here"
export CT0="your_ct0_cookie_here"

• To get token and ct0 press F12 in logged-in browser session on x.com
• Click on Storage -> Cookies -> x.com to view and copy the AUTH_TOKEN and CT0 cookies
• These are session cookies that expire periodically and need refreshing

GitHub Authentication

For GitHub, you can authenticate via the gh CLI instead of setting a token:

gh auth login  # if already authenticated, GitHub search works without a token
export GITHUB_TOKEN="ghp_your_token_here"  # or set the token directly

Exa Search Authentication

search_exa requires EXA_API_KEY to be set:

export EXA_API_KEY="your_api_key_here"

Troubleshooting

• If you encounter authentication errors when using Groq tools (groq_search, groq_analyze), ensure GROQ_API_KEY is correctly exported in the environment where the MCP server is running.
• If search_x returns authentication errors, refresh your AUTH_TOKEN and CT0 cookies from a logged-in browser session.
• If GitHub search returns empty results, ensure you either have the gh CLI authenticated or set GITHUB_TOKEN.
• Reddit, Hacker News, Wikipedia, arXiv, DuckDuckGo, and developer tools require no configuration or API keys.

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