Cursor

Give Cursor's agent live web access — install the Search1API plugin from the Cursor Directory in one click, or configure the hosted MCP server in mcp.json.

Search1API is published as a plugin in the Cursor Directory. Installing it points Cursor at the hosted Search1API MCP server, so the agent can search the web, read pages and check what's trending while it works on your code — without leaving the editor or writing an integration.

What the agent gets

Tool	What it does	Required
`search`	Web search	`query`
`news`	News search	`query`
`crawl`	Read a URL	`url`
`sitemap`	List a site's links	`url`
`trending`	GitHub / Hacker News trends	`search_service`

Install

One click from the Cursor Directory

Open cursor.directory/plugins/search1api.
Select Add to Cursor. Your browser hands the install off to the Cursor desktop app.
Review the configuration Cursor shows you — it should be exactly the hosted endpoint:
```
{
  "url": "https://mcp.search1api.com/mcp"
}
```
Confirm the install, then sign in when Cursor opens the Search1API authorization page in your browser.

No API key is involved: the entry carries only the server URL, and Cursor completes OAuth on the first connection.

By hand in `mcp.json`

Cursor reads MCP servers from two files:

File	Scope
`~/.cursor/mcp.json`	Every project
`.cursor/mcp.json`	One project

Configure the endpoint and nothing else. Cursor discovers the authorization server from Search1API's WWW-Authenticate challenge, registers itself, and prompts you to sign in:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "search1api": {
      "url": "https://mcp.search1api.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Create a key at app.s1.dev and send it as a bearer token:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "search1api": {
      "url": "https://mcp.search1api.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_SEARCH1API_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

For ~/.cursor/mcp.json that is all you need. For a project's .cursor/mcp.json, which usually ends up in version control, swap the key for "Bearer ${env:SEARCH1API_KEY}" and export SEARCH1API_KEY from your shell profile — Cursor resolves ${env:NAME} inside url and headers. Note that Cursor's envFile field will not do this for you: it is stdio-only and is ignored for remote servers.

Restart Cursor after editing the file.

Verify

Open Customize in the Cursor sidebar and confirm the Search1API server is listed and enabled. It should report the five tools above.
In a chat, ask: Search the web for the latest Next.js release notes and cite the sources.
Approve the tool call when Cursor asks.

Cursor lists the connected tools under Available Tools and uses them on its own when a request needs current information, including in Plan mode. You can also name a tool directly — for example, "use the crawl tool on this URL".

Troubleshooting

The server does not appear

Check the JSON is valid and sits at ~/.cursor/mcp.json or <project>/.cursor/mcp.json, then restart Cursor. Confirm the server is toggled on under Customize.

Read the MCP logs

Open the Output panel (Cmd+Shift+U on macOS, Ctrl+Shift+U on Windows and Linux) and select MCP Logs from the dropdown. It shows connection attempts, authorization challenges and tool errors.

`401 Unauthorized`

On OAuth, the session expired or was revoked — remove and re-add the server to authorize again. On an API key, the key is invalid or revoked. If you used ${env:SEARCH1API_KEY}, also check the variable actually reaches Cursor: launch it from a shell where echo $SEARCH1API_KEY prints the key, or paste the literal key in temporarily to isolate the problem. See Authentication.

MCP server — the full endpoint reference, OAuth details and other clients
Agent skill — teach an agent when to search, not just how
Search API · Crawl API
Cursor Directory listing · Cursor MCP documentation

Source: github.com/superagents-lab/search1api-mcp