Web Search

ai.groundroutePublished by groundroute.aiOfficial publisherv0.1.0Updated Oct 27, 2026

Web search for AI agents — one tool across 6 engines, routed to the cheapest + cached.

VerifiedStreamable HTTPWeb executableWeb Search & ScrapingAI & ML

Overview

AI-generated overview

Hosted web search MCP server exposing one search tool that routes queries across six search engines with caching and failover.

What you can do
  • Run web searches with a single search tool, choosing a mode such as auto, web, news, academic, answer or page
  • Filter and tune results by result count, freshness, include-only domains, language and country
  • Get ranked results with URL, title, snippet, content, source engine and publish date, plus an optional synthesized answer with citations
  • See per-call metadata such as request ID, cache tier, degraded status and billed cost
When to use it
Useful when an assistant needs live web, news or academic lookups without wiring up several search provider APIs, and when you want routing, caching and failover handled by a hosted service.
Requirements
Remote streamable-HTTP endpoint; OAuth is declared as required, and the README also describes an API key sent as an Authorization Bearer header (or GROUNDROUTE_API_KEY for the optional local stdio server). Tool discovery works without a key; running searches needs one. Network access required.
Before you install
Searches are billed per call and cost is reported in the response metadata; pricing is gain-share on cache savings, and BYOK is supported. The API key is a credential to keep out of shared configs. Queries are sent to a third-party hosted service that forwards them to external search engines.

Installation

In SourceWeft

  1. Open Web Search in the dashboard and add it to a workspace.
  2. Connect the required credentials. They are stored privately and never shown on public pages.
  3. Enable the server for the chats that should use its tools.

Web executable via Streamable HTTP. Remote servers run from the web runtime once configured in a workspace.

Use with an agent

Paste this prompt into Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or another agent — or into SourceWeft chat. The agent reads this server's install guide, shows you its publisher, endpoint and sign-in, and adds it to your client once you agree. Keys never go into a command.

Read https://sourceweft.com/mcp/ai.groundroute%2Fweb-search/install.md and connect the MCP server it describes to my client. Before changing any config, show me its publisher, endpoint and sign-in method and wait for my OK. Never put an API key in a command or in a file I would commit; ask me where it should come from.

Read the install guide the agent follows

Other MCP clients

Add this to your client's mcpServers config. The client completes OAuth sign-in on first connect.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "web-search": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://api.groundroute.ai/mcp"
    }
  }
}

README

[GroundRoute, web search MCP server]

[Glama score] [License: MIT] [Python 3.12+] [MCP compatible] [Smithery]

Give your AI agent web search across 6 engines through one MCP search tool. Hosted. Routed. Cached.

Why GroundRoute

  • One tool, six engines. Serper, Brave, Exa, Tavily, Firecrawl, Perplexity, behind a single search call. Stop wiring up six APIs, six SDKs, six billing portals.
  • Never more than going direct. Gain-share pricing: you keep ~half of every cache saving, GroundRoute keeps ~half. On a miss, you just pay the engine. BYOK supported.
  • Routing, caching, failover, on by default. Each query goes to the cheapest engine that clears a quality bar. Repeats serve from cache. If an engine degrades, we fall back automatically. No agent code changes.

See it work (5 seconds)

A call to the search tool:

json
{  "name": "search",  "arguments": { "query": "what is RAGflow", "max_results": 3 }}

The response (trimmed):

json
{  "results": [    {      "url": "https://ragflow.io/docs/",      "title": "Quickstart - RAGFlow",      "snippet": "RAGFlow is an open-source RAG engine based on deep document understanding...",      "source_engine": "serper"    },    {      "url": "https://github.com/infiniflow/ragflow",      "title": "RAGFlow is a leading open-source Retrieval-Augmented Generation engine",      "snippet": "RAGFlow is a leading open-source Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) engine...",      "source_engine": "serper"    }  ],  "meta": {    "request_id": "req_abc123",    "cache_tier": "miss",    "degraded": false,    "cost_usd": 0.0021  }}

source_engine tells you which engine answered. meta exposes the cache tier and billed cost per call.

Benchmarked, not just shipped

We ran 170 real agent queries across all 6 engines, judged by an LLM, to map cost vs. quality per query class. Full methodology and per-engine results: State of AI Search.

Install

The hosted endpoint is https://api.groundroute.ai/mcp (streamable-HTTP). Get an API key at groundroute.ai/keys.

Claude Desktop / Claude Code, add to your MCP config:

json
{  "mcpServers": {    "groundroute": {      "type": "http",      "url": "https://api.groundroute.ai/mcp",      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer gr_YOUR_KEY" }    }  }}

Cursor, ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

json
{ "mcpServers": { "groundroute": { "url": "https://api.groundroute.ai/mcp",  "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer gr_YOUR_KEY" } } } }

VS Code (native MCP / Continue), .vscode/mcp.json:

json
{ "servers": { "groundroute": { "type": "http", "url": "https://api.groundroute.ai/mcp",  "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer gr_YOUR_KEY" } } } }

Local / stdio-only clients, bridge stdio to HTTP with mcp-remote:

json
{ "mcpServers": { "groundroute": {  "command": "npx",  "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://api.groundroute.ai/mcp", "--header", "Authorization:Bearer gr_YOUR_KEY"]} } }

Run this repo's stdio server (optional)

This repo also ships a small native stdio MCP server (server.py) that forwards to the hosted API, useful for stdio-only clients or containerized runs.

bash
pip install -r requirements.txtGROUNDROUTE_API_KEY=gr_YOUR_KEY python server.py

Or with Docker:

bash
docker build -t groundroute-mcp .docker run -i -e GROUNDROUTE_API_KEY=gr_YOUR_KEY groundroute-mcp

Introspection (tool discovery) works with no key; running a search requires GROUNDROUTE_API_KEY (get one at https://groundroute.ai/keys).

The search tool

ParamTypeNotes
querystringrequired
modeenumauto (default), web, news, academic, answer, page
max_resultsintegerdefault 10, max 50
freshnessenumfresh, semi, static; omit to auto-detect
domainsstring[]include-only domain filter, e.g. ["arxiv.org"]
langstringISO 639-1 language code, e.g. en
countrystringISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code, e.g. us

Returns a structured result: ranked results (url / title / snippet / content / source_engine / published_at), an optional synthesized answer with citations (answer mode), and meta (request_id / cache_tier / degraded / cost_usd). Routed, cached, and reliable.

How it works

One endpoint in front of many search engines, with price-led routing, caching, failover, and usage governance. See the docs and the State of AI Search benchmark (170 real agent queries across all 6 engines).

Links

registry-manifest.json in this repo is the listing manifest for MCP registries.

Source: README.md at commit 0c42389

Tools

0
This server asks for a credential such as an API key, so SourceWeft could not read its tools without one and has not indexed them.

Version history

1
  1. v0.1.0LatestSep 16, 2026

Score

85% of the applicable checks met

How complete this listing is, computed from the registry entry, the endpoint and public sources. Not a rating of the server and not a statement that it is safe or working today: reachability is a dated check, and no installs or reviews go into the score.

  • Reached in the last 30 daysRequired25 pts
  • Auth declaredRequired10 pts
  • Tools listed15 pts

    Answer tools/list without a credential, or ship a package that starts in a sandbox without one.

  • DescriptionRequired15 pts
  • Logo10 pts
  • Documentation15 pts
  • License10 pts