Perplexity MCP for VS Code

Use your Perplexity account (Free / Pro / Max) directly inside VS Code — no API key needed.

Not affiliated with Perplexity AI, Inc. This is a community-maintained project.

Experimental — Under active development. APIs and behavior may change without notice.

Demo

_{▶ Watch the demo on YouTube}

Install

IDE	Install
Visual Studio Code
VS Code Insiders
Cursor
Windsurf
Trae
Open VSX (Gitpod · Theia · Coder)

What is this?

A VS Code extension that embeds the Perplexity MCP runtime directly in your editor. It drives a long-lived patchright Chromium session against your existing Perplexity account — so it uses your Free / Pro / Max plan instead of an API key.

Key features

Zero API key — authenticates via your browser session, uses your existing Perplexity plan.
Embedded MCP server — registered via mcpServerDefinitionProviders; agents (Copilot, Cursor, etc.) pick it up automatically.
Webview dashboard — login flows, profile management, session status, all inside VS Code.
Auto-config for 20+ IDEs — one click writes MCP configs and rulesets for Cursor, Windsurf, Claude Desktop, Cline, Amp, Codex CLI, Visual Studio 2022, OpenCode, GitHub Copilot CLI, Factory Droid, Qwen Code, and more.
Multi-account profile switching — multiple Perplexity accounts (Free / Pro / Max) coexist; switching the active profile in the dashboard propagates to running MCP servers automatically without needing to restart your IDE.
Self-healing login + vault — login flows have a wall-clock timeout and a Cancel button; vault decryption transparently falls back across keychain ↔ env-var-passphrase to survive key rotations or extension upgrades that flip your unseal preference.
Daemon mode — keep a long-lived HTTP MCP server running with Cloudflare or ngrok tunnels.

Getting started

Install the extension from the Marketplace.
Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P) and run Perplexity: Login.
A browser window opens — log in to your Perplexity account.
Done. The MCP server is now available to any agent in VS Code.

First run only: Perplexity serves a Cloudflare Turnstile on the first login. The extension opens a headed browser so you can complete it. After that, sessions are cached and renewed automatically.

Browser support

The extension automates a real Chromium browser to survive Cloudflare. It probes in this order:

Priority	Browser	Notes
#1	Google Chrome	Recommended — best Cloudflare compatibility
#2	Microsoft Edge	Works on all platforms
#3	System Chromium	Good for Linux / headless servers
#4	Brave	Auto-detected, no special flags
#5	Bundled Chromium	Fallback via `npx patchright install chromium`

Override detection with PERPLEXITY_BROWSER_CHANNEL or PERPLEXITY_BROWSER_PATH.

Auto-config: supported IDEs

Run Perplexity: Configure IDEs from the Command Palette to auto-write MCP configs and rules for:

Client	Config written
Cursor	`.cursor/rules/*.mdc`, `mcp.json`
Claude Desktop / Claude Code	`claude_desktop_config.json`, `CLAUDE.md`
Windsurf / Windsurf Next	`mcp_config.json`, `.windsurf/rules/*`
Cline	MCP settings, `.clinerules/*`
Amp	`.github/instructions/*`, `AGENTS.md`
Codex CLI	`~/.codex/config.toml`, `AGENTS.md`
VS Code MCP / Visual Studio 2022	`.vscode/mcp.json` / `<sln>/.mcp.json` (root key `servers`)
OpenCode	`~/.config/opencode/opencode.json` (root key `mcp`), `AGENTS.md`
GitHub Copilot CLI	`~/.copilot/mcp-config.json`, `AGENTS.md`
Factory Droid	`~/.factory/mcp.json`, `AGENTS.md`
Qwen Code	`~/.qwen/settings.json`, `AGENTS.md`
Gemini CLI / Firebase Studio / Kiro	`~/.gemini/settings.json`, `.idx/mcp.json`, `~/.kiro/settings/mcp.json`
…and more	See full IDE list

Commands

Command	Description
`Perplexity: Login`	Open login browser and authenticate
`Perplexity: Logout`	Clear cached session
`Perplexity: Configure IDEs`	Auto-write MCP configs for all supported IDEs
`Perplexity: Open Dashboard`	Open the webview dashboard
`Perplexity: Restart Server`	Restart the embedded MCP daemon

Links

MIT License · Not affiliated with Perplexity AI, Inc.

Perplexity MCP

Nskha