MCP · Brave Search — structured web search

Use case: research, comparisons, fact-checking — a web search whose results (titles, URLs, snippets) reach the model structured, complementing Znote's built-in websearch=true.

Prerequisites

A free API key at brave.com/search/api (2,000 requests/month included).

Configuration (.znote/mcp.json)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brave": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@brave/brave-search-mcp-server"],
      "env": { "BRAVE_API_KEY": "BSA..." }
    }
  }
}

Paid, more AI-oriented alternatives: Exa (exa-mcp-server) for semantic search, Tavily (tavily-mcp) for search + extraction.

Exposed tools: brave_web_search, brave_news_search, brave_local_search, brave_image_search, brave_summarizer…

Examples

Targeted research

Search for announcements from the last 30 days about the Model Context
Protocol: new integrations, spec changes. Give sources with dates.

Sourced comparison

Compare markdown note apps with code execution (2026). Table: name,
price, local-first or cloud, strengths. Cite your sources.

News in context

What's this week's news about Electron? Keep what concerns security or
breaking changes.

Tips

• Brave via MCP gives the model control of the search (successive queries, reformulation) — more agentic than the built-in websearch.
• Chain with fetch: brave finds, fetch reads the full article.