TechDoc-Search-MCP

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that lets AI coding assistants (Claude Code, Cursor, Claude Desktop, …) search up-to-date official documentation and trusted articles for any technology, right from your editor.

• 🔍 One tool: search_tech_docs — search by technology + topic, get LLM-ready Markdown back
• 🔑 BYOK (Bring Your Own Key): uses your own free Tavily API key — zero server cost
• 🛡️ Built-in timeout, retry, and rate-limit handling with actionable error messages

Quick start

1. Get a free Tavily API key

Sign up at app.tavily.com — the free tier includes 1,000 credits/month, no credit card required. Copy your key (starts with tvly-).

2. Add the server to your MCP client

Claude Code

claude mcp add techdoc-search --env TAVILY_API_KEY=tvly-xxxx -- npx -y techdoc-search-mcp

Cursor (.cursor/mcp.json) / Claude Desktop (claude_desktop_config.json)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "techdoc-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "techdoc-search-mcp"],
      "env": { "TAVILY_API_KEY": "tvly-xxxx" }
    }
  }
}

3. Use it

Ask your AI assistant something like:

"Search the latest Next.js 14 docs about Server Actions error handling"

Tool reference

search_tech_docs

| Argument | Type | Required | Description | |---|---|---|---| | technology | string | ✅ | Technology/library name, including version. e.g. "Next.js 14" | | topic | string | ✅ | Topic, API name, or error message. e.g. "Server Actions error handling" | | max_results | number (1–10) | — | Number of results (default: 5) | | include_domains | string[] | — | Restrict to specific domains, e.g. ["nextjs.org"] | | recency_days | number | — | Only results published within this many days |

Returns a single Markdown document: ranked results with source domain, publish date, relevance score, and extracted page content.

Configuration (environment variables)

| Variable | Default | Description | |---|---|---| | TAVILY_API_KEY | — | Required. Your Tavily API key | | SEARCH_PROVIDER | tavily | Search backend (exa support planned) | | TECHDOC_TIMEOUT_MS | 10000 | Per-request timeout in milliseconds |

Your API key is only sent to the search provider and never logged.

Development

npm install
npm test          # unit tests (vitest)
npm run build     # compile to dist/
npm run dev       # run from source (tsx)

# Interactive testing with MCP Inspector
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector npx tsx src/index.ts

License

MIT