Perplexity Ask MCP Server: MCP Ecosystem Connector for Real-time Web Search! (with detailed manual)

Written by

Silas Grey

Updated on:July-09th-2025

What is Perplexity Ask MCP Server?

Perplexity Ask MCP Server is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server specifically designed to connect to the Perplexity API and provide real-time network search capabilities for the MCP ecosystem (such as the Claude desktop client).

Its core values are:

Breaking the Knowledge Deadline

Obtain real-time data through the Sonar API to solve the problem of delayed updates of large model knowledge bases;

Seamless experience

Users can complete searches without switching apps, such as checking the latest sports results or news updates directly in Claude;

Multimodal support

The returned results include text, links, multimedia content and citation sources, enhancing the credibility of the information.

How to use Perplexity Ask MCP Server?

first step:

Clone the MCP repository:

git@github.com:modelcontextprotocol/servers.git

Change into the confused ask directory and install the necessary dependencies:

cd servers/src/perplexity-ask && npm install

Step 2: Get the Sonar API Key

Sign up for a Sonar API account, follow the account setup instructions, and generate an API key from the Developer Dashboard.

Set the API key in your environment to: PERPLEXITY_API_KEY .

Step 3: Configure Claude Desktop

Download Claude Desktop.

Add claude_desktop_config.json:

{ "mcpServers": { "perplexity-ask": { "command": "docker", "args": [ "run", "-i", "--rm", "-e", "PERPLEXITY_API_KEY", "mcp/perplexity-ask" ], "env": { "PERPLEXITY_API_KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY_HERE" } } }}

NPX

{ "mcpServers": { "perplexity-ask": { "command": "npx", "args": [ "-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-perplexity-ask" ], "env": { "PERPLEXITY_API_KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY_HERE" } } }}

Access the file using the following command:

vim ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Step 4: Build Docker Image

Docker build:

docker build -t mcp/perplexity-ask:latest -f src/perplexity-ask/Dockerfile .

Step 5: Testing

Make sure the Claude desktop application is in use and after clicking the hammer icon you should see the tools that come with the File System MCP server.

If you see it, it means the integration is active. From now on we can simply use it like we use the Perplexity web application.