socialcrawl-mcp

Give your AI agent access to 27 platforms — social media, web research, prediction markets, and a universal cross-platform meta-search — through a single API

Overview | Installation | Setup | Usage | Tools | Platforms

Overview

socialcrawl-mcp is an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that connects AI agents to the SocialCrawl API — a unified data API covering 27 platforms and 133 endpoints.

Retrieve profiles, posts, comments, search results, trending content, and analytics from TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Reddit, GitHub, Hacker News, Polymarket, and 18 more platforms — plus web research via Tavily and Perplexity, AI-powered X search via Grok, and a single /search/everywhere endpoint that fans out across 12 sources in one call. One API key, one consistent response format, every platform.

What the MCP server does:

• Discovers available platforms and endpoints dynamically
• Fetches live social media data on your behalf
• Validates requests locally before making API calls (saves credits)
• Provides built-in API documentation the agent can query on demand

Installation

npm

npm install -g socialcrawl-mcp

Available on npm. Most users don't need this — the MCP client configs below use npx and auto-install on first run.

Claude Code (quickest)

claude mcp add --scope user socialcrawl -- npx -y socialcrawl-mcp

Then set your API key:

claude mcp add-env socialcrawl SOCIALCRAWL_API_KEY sc_your_key_here

Claude Desktop

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "socialcrawl": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "socialcrawl-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "SOCIALCRAWL_API_KEY": "sc_your_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor

Add to .cursor/mcp.json in your project root or ~/.cursor/mcp.json globally:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "socialcrawl": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "socialcrawl-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "SOCIALCRAWL_API_KEY": "sc_your_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

VS Code (Claude Code)

Add to .vscode/mcp.json in your project or your user settings:

{
  "servers": {
    "socialcrawl": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "socialcrawl-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "SOCIALCRAWL_API_KEY": "sc_your_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Windsurf

Add to your Windsurf MCP configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "socialcrawl": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "socialcrawl-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "SOCIALCRAWL_API_KEY": "sc_your_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Other MCP-compatible clients

Any MCP client that supports stdio transport can use this server. The general pattern is:

• Command: npx
• Args: ["-y", "socialcrawl-mcp"]
• Environment: SOCIALCRAWL_API_KEY set to your API key

Restart your AI client after saving the configuration.

Setup

1. Get your API key

Sign up at socialcrawl.dev and grab your API key from the dashboard. Every account starts with 100 free credits — no credit card required.

2. Add the key to your config

Replace sc_your_key_here in the installation config above with your actual API key (starts with sc_).

[!TIP] You can also set SOCIALCRAWL_API_KEY as a system environment variable instead of putting it in the MCP config. The discovery and documentation tools work even without a key — only actual API requests need one.

Usage

Ask your AI agent in natural language. The MCP server handles the rest.

Fetch a profile

Get the TikTok profile for @charlidamelio

The agent calls socialcrawl_request with platform: "tiktok", resource: "profile", params: { handle: "charlidamelio" } and returns structured profile data including followers, bio, verification status, and engagement metrics.

Search across platforms

Search YouTube for "machine learning tutorials"

Get post comments

Get the comments on this Instagram post: https://instagram.com/p/CwA1234abcd

Cross-platform research

Compare the follower counts of @mkbhd on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter

The agent makes 4 sequential API calls — one per platform — and compiles the results into a comparison.

Explore available endpoints

What social media platforms can you access?

Show me all the TikTok endpoints

Access documentation

How does the SocialCrawl credit system work?

Example response

Every response follows a unified envelope format:

{
  "success": true,
  "platform": "tiktok",
  "endpoint": "/v1/tiktok/profile",
  "data": {
    "content": { "text": "...", "media_urls": ["..."] },
    "author": { "username": "charlidamelio", "followers": 156000000 },
    "engagement": { "likes": 5200, "engagement_rate": 0.045 },
    "metadata": { "language": "en", "content_category": "entertainment" }
  },
  "credits_used": 1,
  "credits_remaining": 99
}

[!NOTE] The same response structure is returned for every platform — no per-platform parsing logic needed.

Available Tools

The MCP server exposes 5 tools:

| Tool | Description | Needs API key? | |------|-------------|----------------| | socialcrawl_list_platforms | Discover all 21 platforms with their endpoints and capabilities | No | | socialcrawl_list_endpoints | See all endpoints, required parameters, and credit costs for a platform | No | | socialcrawl_request | Make any SocialCrawl API call — profiles, posts, comments, search, analytics. Supports an optional idempotencyKey for retry-safe calls. | Yes | | socialcrawl_check_balance | Check remaining credits and recent deduction summary. Calls /v1/credits/balance — costs 0 credits. | Yes | | socialcrawl_get_docs | Access detailed API documentation by topic or platform | No |

Three of the five tools work without an API key — they query local bundled data. socialcrawl_request and socialcrawl_check_balance require a key.

Smart validation

Before making any API call, socialcrawl_request validates locally that the platform exists, the endpoint exists, and all required parameters are present. If something is wrong, it tells the agent exactly how to fix it — without consuming any credits.

Retry-safe requests

Pass an idempotencyKey to socialcrawl_request (UUIDv4 recommended) to make the call retry-safe. If the request is replayed within 24h, the server returns the original response and deducts 0 credits (X-Idempotent-Replay: true).

Supported Platforms

| Platform | Endpoints | Data Available | |----------|-----------|----------------| | TikTok | 26 | Profiles, videos, comments, followers, search, trending, live, Shop, showcase | | Instagram | 12 | Profiles, posts, reels, comments, highlights, search | | YouTube | 12 | Channels, videos, shorts, playlists, comments, trending, comment replies | | Facebook | 12 | Profiles, posts, reels, photos, groups, Ad Library | | GitHub | 12 | Users, repos, issues, PRs, READMEs, releases, search, repo dossier, user profile-velocity | | Twitter/X | 7 | Profiles, tweets, communities, video transcripts, AI search via Grok | | Reddit | 7 | Subreddits, posts, comments, search, ads | | LinkedIn | 6 | Profiles, company pages, posts, Ad Library | | Threads | 5 | Profiles, posts, search | | Pinterest | 4 | Search, pins, boards | | Google | 4 | Search, Ad Library | | Tavily | 4 | Web search (with LLM answer), URL extraction, sitemap, full crawl | | Hacker News | 4 | Story search, story, comment tree, profile | | Truth Social | 3 | Profiles, posts | | Twitch | 2 | Profiles, clips | | Polymarket | 2 | Prediction-market search + multi-query research fan-out | | Perplexity | 1 | Sonar web research with cited sources | | Universal Search | 1 | One query, fanned out across 12 platforms (20cr) | | Snapchat | 1 | Profiles | | Kick | 1 | Clips | | Amazon | 1 | Shop pages | | Linktree | 1 | Link pages | | Linkbio | 1 | Link pages | | Linkme | 1 | Link pages | | Komi | 1 | Link pages | | Pillar | 1 | Link pages | | Utility | 1 | Age & gender detection |

Total: 133 endpoints across 27 platforms.

Error Handling

The MCP server handles errors gracefully and gives the agent actionable guidance:

| Error | What the agent sees | |-------|---------------------| | Missing API key | Prompts to set SOCIALCRAWL_API_KEY with link to sign up | | Invalid API key | Asks to check the key configuration | | Insufficient credits | Shows balance and links to billing page | | Bad platform/resource | Suggests using discovery tools to find the right endpoint | | Missing parameters | Lists exactly what's missing with examples | | Resource not found (404) | Reports the upstream resource doesn't exist; credits auto-refunded (BIL-01) | | Idempotency-Key conflict (409) | Tells the agent the key was used by another account — generate a fresh one | | Idempotency-Key payload mismatch (422) | Tells the agent the same key was reused with different params | | Method not allowed (405) | Reminds the caller that /v1/* is GET-only | | Concurrency limit (429) | Asks the caller to back off (50 concurrent/key max) | | Upstream error (502) | Reports the failure; credits refunded automatically | | Platform unavailable (503) | Circuit breaker open; credits refunded; retry in 30s |

Links

• Get Your API Key — 100 free credits, no credit card required
• API Documentation — full endpoint reference, credits, and error codes
• SocialCrawl Website
• npm Package
• MCP Registry
• Getting Started Guide
• How It Works