MCP

The Keenable tools are also available as a Model Context Protocol server, so agents like Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, and Windsurf can call them directly. Pass your API key in the X-API-Key header to remove the hourly request limit and raise rate limits — see Authentication and Rate limits. Drop the header and the server still answers, on the shared public tier.

Installation

One-click install

Add Keenable to Cursor or VS Code with a single click:

Add to Cursor Add to VS Code Add to VS Code Insiders

Install via CLI

The easiest way to set up the Keenable MCP server for local coding agents is via the Keenable CLI. Once you’ve installed the CLI, run the following to be guided through the MCP server setup.

keenable configure-mcp

Claude Code

Add the Keenable MCP server with the Claude Code CLI:

claude mcp add keenable \
  --transport http https://api.keenable.ai/mcp \
  --scope user \
  --header "X-API-Key: keen_<your_key>"

Omit the --header flag to run on the public tier instead.

Codex

Add the following to ~/.codex/config.toml

[mcp_servers.keenable]
url = "https://api.keenable.ai/mcp"
http_headers = { "X-API-Key" = "keen_<your_key>" }

Omit the http_headers line to run on the public tier instead.

Codex needs one more line. It ships its own web search, enabled by default, and keeps reaching for that instead — so the tools show up in /mcp but never get called unless you ask for them by name. Add web_search = "disabled" to the same file, above the [mcp_servers.keenable] line — it’s a top-level key, and a bare key written under a table header belongs to that table instead, where Codex never reads it. See Codex for the finished file, the other modes, and an AGENTS.md snippet.

Other MCP clients

For Cursor and other clients that accept a remote MCP URL in their config file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "keenable": {
      "url": "https://api.keenable.ai/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "X-API-Key": "keen_<your_key>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Omit the headers block to run on the public tier instead.

Claude Desktop is not one of these clients. Its config file accepts only local command servers, so a "url" entry is ignored without an error and the tools never appear. Use a connector instead, or the local bridge if you want your key applied.

OpenAI API (Responses API)

This is for calling the MCP server from your own code against OpenAI’s API — different from adding Keenable inside the ChatGPT app itself, which is the Plugins Directory listing. Pass it as a remote mcp tool:

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI()
response = client.responses.create(
    model="gpt-5",
    input="What's new in retrieval-augmented generation this week?",
    tools=[
        {
            "type": "mcp",
            "server_label": "keenable",
            "server_url": "https://api.keenable.ai/mcp",
            "headers": {"X-API-Key": "keen_<your_key>"},
            "require_approval": "never",
        }
    ],
)
print(response.output_text)

Omit the headers entry to run on the public tier instead.

Keenable’s search and fetch cover the same ground as a client’s own built-in tools (WebSearch, WebFetch, brave_search, tavily_search). With both sets active an agent picks between them inconsistently from one call to the next, so most people turn the built-in ones off in client settings once Keenable is in place.

Claude (remote connector)

Claude (Desktop, claude.ai, mobile) connects to the remote MCP server through its custom connector UI — no config file needed. The connection is made from Anthropic’s cloud, so your server just needs to be reachable at its public URL.

ChatGPT installs from the Plugins Directory — Keenable is published there, so it comes from the catalog and signs you in to your Keenable account. Codex can install from the same listing, but has a config.toml route of its own.

Add the connector

Keenable is a listed connector in Claude, so open Settings → Connectors, find Keenable, and there is nothing to paste.Otherwise add it by URL — Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector — leaving OAuth Client ID / Secret empty:

https://api.keenable.ai/mcp

Connect

A newly added connector isn’t active until you connect it. Open Manage connectors, find Keenable, and click Connect — the tools appear immediately. The connector UI has no field for a request header, so it runs on the public tier; use the local bridge if you want your own key applied.

Enable it in a chat

In the composer, click + → Connectors and toggle Keenable on for the conversation.

Local bridge (with an API key)

Any client that only speaks local stdio — Claude Desktop’s config file is the common case, since its connector UI has no field for a header — needs a bridge to apply your own key. @keenable/mcp-server runs as a subprocess and forwards to the same endpoint:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "keenable": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@keenable/mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "KEENABLE_API_KEY": "keen_<your_key>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Needs Node.js on the machine, and the client has to be restarted after editing its config file (for Claude Desktop, claude_desktop_config.json). Drop the env block to run it without a key. The same block works verbatim in any other stdio-only client’s config, not just Claude Desktop’s.

Available tools

Two tools are exposed by the MCP server.

`search_web_pages`

Search the web and return ranked results with URLs, titles, and descriptions.

string

required

The search query.

string

Restrict results to a specific site (e.g. "techcrunch.com").

string

Filter to pages acquired/indexed at or after this point in time.

string

Filter to pages acquired/indexed at or before this point in time.

string

Filter to pages published at or after this point in time.

string

Filter to pages published at or before this point in time.

string

Search the index as it stood at this point in time: pages acquired after it are excluded. Accepts a timestamp or a date (a date resolves to 00:00:00 UTC, not to the end of the day). See Point-in-time search.

integer

Maximum length, in characters, of the snippet returned per result. Must be between 180 and 10000. When omitted, a default snippet length is used.

integer

Maximum number of results to return. Must be between 1 and 50. When omitted, up to 10 results are returned.

Date and time filters

acquired_after, acquired_before, published_after, and published_before each accept one of the following formats:

Date in RFC 3339 full-date form (YYYY-MM-DD) — covers that whole day in UTC. On an _after bound it resolves to 00:00:00 on that date; on a _before bound it resolves to 23:59:59.999 on that date, so pages from the named day are kept at either end. Pass a timestamp instead to cut at an exact instant.
Timestamp in ISO 8601 form (YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS[.sss][±HH:MM]). When a timezone offset is not provided, the timezone is interpreted as UTC.
Relative delta (<number><unit>, e.g. 7d, 30min) — resolves to the request time minus the delta, truncated to minute precision, or to query_time minus the delta when that is set. Supported units: min (minutes), h (hours), d (days), mo (months), y (years).

Example values:

Value	Resolves to
`2026-01-15` on `acquired_after` / `published_after`	`2026-01-15T00:00:00Z`
`2026-01-15` on `acquired_before` / `published_before`	`2026-01-15T23:59:59.999Z`
`2026-01-15T10:30:00`	`2026-01-15T10:30:00Z` (no offset → UTC)
`2026-01-15T10:30:00Z`	`2026-01-15T10:30:00Z`
`2026-01-15T10:30:00.500-05:00`	`2026-01-15T15:30:00.500Z`
`7d`	7 days before request time, truncated to the minute
`30min`	30 minutes before request time, truncated to the minute

Relative deltas may be combined with absolute values across the two bounds of a window:

{
  "query": "...",
  "published_after": "1y",
  "published_before": "6mo"
}

{
  "query": "...",
  "acquired_after": "2024-01-01",
  "acquired_before": "30d"
}

For example, at request time 2026-05-18T14:23:45Z, acquired_after: "2h" resolves to 2026-05-18T12:23:00Z — a document acquired at 12:22:59Z is dropped, one acquired at 12:23:00Z is kept. Mind the difference between a date and a timestamp on a _before bound: acquired_before: "2026-05-01" keeps a page acquired at 2026-05-01T14:31:13Z, while acquired_before: "2026-05-01T00:00:00Z" drops it. Use the date form to mean “up to and including that day”, and the timestamp form to cut at midnight.

Point-in-time search

query_time moves the whole search back to an instant: a page acquired after it is not a candidate at all, so the answer is the one the index would have given then rather than today’s answer filtered down. Reach for it to reproduce an agent run, to build an evaluation set that does not drift as the index grows, or to ask what was knowable before an event. It also re-bases every relative delta on this request. A delta resolves against the request time only when query_time is absent; with it, published_after: "30d" means thirty days before query_time:

{
  "query": "...",
  "query_time": "2026-06-13T00:00:00Z",
  "published_after": "30d"
}

resolves to pages published between 2026-05-14 and 2026-06-13 — not to the last thirty days. Absolute bounds are unaffected. A date-only query_time resolves to 00:00:00 UTC, which is the opposite end of the day from a date-only _before bound: query_time: "2026-06-13" cuts at the start of 13 June, while acquired_before: "2026-06-13" keeps all of it.

`fetch_page_content`

Fetch a URL and extract content as clean markdown. By default only URLs from the index are supported; this is not a general web scraper. Pass live=true to fetch directly from the source, including URLs that are not indexed.

string

required

The URL to fetch.

integer

default:"50000"

Maximum number of characters of content to return. Longer content is truncated.

boolean

default:"false"

Fetch the page live from the source instead of returning Keenable’s indexed copy. Enables fetching URLs that are not indexed.

string

Optional extraction instruction, at most 2000 characters. When set, an LLM reads the fetched page and the returned content is only the output for this instruction instead of the full page. Example: List all pricing tiers with their monthly prices.

Returns url, title, and content (markdown). See the Fetch reference for the response shape.

Metadata for integrators

Platforms embedding Keenable’s MCP tools can read billing usage and control tool behaviour through the MCP _meta side channel. _meta travels alongside the tool result or request and is not part of the model-visible tool content, so none of it enters the agent’s context.

Usage metadata (response `_meta`)

Every billed (authenticated) tool call returns usage under _meta["keenable/usage"], so you can attribute cost per call without parsing the tool’s text output. Unauthenticated calls are unbilled and omit it.

string

Billing SKU for the operation: search.realtime, search.pro, fetch, or fetch.live.

integer

Number of billed operations — always 1 for a single tool call.

number

Credits metered for this call (the org-specific price for the operation).

boolean

true when drawn from purchased credits; false while still on the free monthly allowance. See credits.

Example tool result:

{
  "content": [{ "type": "text", "text": "..." }],
  "_meta": {
    "keenable/usage": { "sku": "search.realtime", "amount": 1, "credits": 1, "paid": true }
  }
}

Operator overrides (request `_meta`)

To control tool behaviour yourself instead of letting the model decide, send overrides under _meta["keenable/overrides"] on a tools/call request. They take precedence over the arguments the model generated.

string

Force the search mode: realtime or pro. Overrides any mode the model chose.

boolean

Bypass cached results for this call.

Example request:

{
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "search_web_pages",
    "arguments": { "query": "..." },
    "_meta": { "keenable/overrides": { "mode": "realtime", "skip_cache": true } }
  }
}

Invalid or unknown override values are ignored rather than erroring the call.

Get started

Tools

API reference

Reference

Installation

One-click install

Install via CLI

Claude Code

Codex

Other MCP clients

OpenAI API (Responses API)

Claude (remote connector)

Local bridge (with an API key)

Available tools

`search_web_pages`

Date and time filters

Point-in-time search

`fetch_page_content`

Metadata for integrators

Usage metadata (response `_meta`)

Operator overrides (request `_meta`)

​Installation

​One-click install

​Install via CLI

​Claude Code

​Codex

​Other MCP clients

​OpenAI API (Responses API)

​Claude (remote connector)

​Local bridge (with an API key)

​Available tools

​search_web_pages

​Date and time filters

​Point-in-time search

​fetch_page_content

​Metadata for integrators

​Usage metadata (response _meta)

​Operator overrides (request _meta)

Installation

One-click install

Install via CLI

Claude Code

Codex

Other MCP clients

OpenAI API (Responses API)

Claude (remote connector)

Local bridge (with an API key)

Available tools

`search_web_pages`

Date and time filters

Point-in-time search

`fetch_page_content`

Metadata for integrators

Usage metadata (response `_meta`)

Operator overrides (request `_meta`)