What is an MCP server?

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard that lets AI assistants like Claude call external tools. An MCP server exposes capabilities — like web scraping — that the AI can invoke during a conversation. AlterLab's MCP server gives AI agents the ability to fetch, scrape, and extract data from any URL in real time.

Which AI tools support the AlterLab MCP Server?

Any MCP-compatible client works: Claude Desktop (Anthropic), Cursor, Windsurf, GitHub Copilot (with MCP support), and any custom agent built with an MCP client library. The AlterLab MCP server follows the standard MCP spec and is compatible with all compliant clients.

How do I get an API key?

Sign up at alterlab.io, go to your dashboard, and copy your API key. New accounts start with free credits. The MCP server reads your key from the ALTERLAB_API_KEY environment variable.

Yes. New AlterLab accounts include free credits. After that, pricing starts at $0.0002 per request — there is no subscription and your balance never expires.

What happens when the AI scrapes a bot-protected page?

AlterLab's 5-tier anti-bot system automatically escalates through more powerful bypass methods (HTTP fingerprinting, stealth browser, captcha solving) until the page is successfully fetched. The AI agent receives the clean result without needing to handle failures.

Integrations/MCP Server

Model Context Protocol

Web scraping for AI agents

Give Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, and any MCP-compatible AI agent real-time access to the web. 25 tools covering scraping, extraction, crawling, and search. Anti-bot bypass built in.

Get API key — free View on npm Star on GitHub

Add to Claude Desktop in 2 minutes

Open your Claude Desktop config file and add the AlterLab MCP server:

// ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "alterlab": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["alterlab-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "ALTERLAB_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop. AlterLab tools appear automatically in the tools panel.

Supported AI clients

Works with any client that implements the Model Context Protocol spec.

Claude Desktop (Anthropic)

Cursor

Windsurf

GitHub Copilot

Custom MCP clients

25 tools available — 9 shown below

Each tool is callable by AI agents during conversations. AlterLab handles anti-bot bypass automatically. The remaining 16 tools cover session management and beta-feature toggles — see the full tool reference on GitHub.

alterlab_scrape

Fetch any URL and return clean markdown, text, HTML, or JSON — anti-bot bypass with automatic 4-tier escalation

alterlab_extract

Extract structured data (prices, product info, custom fields) from HTML, text, or markdown you already have

alterlab_screenshot

Capture a full-page PNG screenshot of any URL, including anti-bot-protected sites

alterlab_crawl

Crawl an entire website for RAG or indexing — discovers and scrapes every page on a domain

alterlab_search

Search the web across Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo with automatic multi-engine failover

alterlab_map

Discover every URL on a site via sitemap parsing and link extraction — no content scraping

alterlab_batch_scrape

Scrape 2-20 URLs in parallel and get all results back in one call, no polling required

alterlab_batch

Scrape large URL sets (20+) asynchronously with batch-ID polling

alterlab_estimate_cost

Estimate the credit cost of a scrape before running it

Anti-bot bypass, automatically

When an AI agent calls alterlab_scrape, AlterLab automatically tries the cheapest method first, then escalates through 5 tiers (stealth browser, captcha solving, residential proxies) until the page is fetched. JavaScript challenges, CAPTCHA systems, and advanced bot protections — all handled transparently.

Frequently asked questions

Ready to give your AI agent web access?

Free credits on signup. No subscription required.

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