Programmatic Use

How to use the MCP servers Programmatically

For AI agents: a documentation index is available at https://docs.parallel.ai/llms.txt. The full text of all docs is at https://docs.parallel.ai/llms-full.txt. You may also fetch any page as Markdown by appending .md to its URL or sending Accept: text/markdown.

When building an agent or chat experiences that requires search, deep research, or batch task processing capabilities, it can be a good choice to integrate with our MCPs. When you desire more control over the reasoning and tool descriptions for niche use-cases (if the system prompt isn’t sufficient) or want to limit or simplify the tools, it may be better to use the APIs directly to build your own tools, for example using the AI SDK. Using the MCP-to-AI-SDK is an excellent starting point in that case.

Authentication

Server	Default endpoint	API key required?
Search MCP	https://search.parallel.ai/mcp	No. Free to use without an Authorization header. Pass a Parallel API key as a Bearer token only if you want higher rate limits. OAuth is not available here — clients that do OAuth discovery will not find metadata on this endpoint.
Search MCP (OAuth / auth-enforced)	https://search.parallel.ai/mcp-oauth	Yes. Bearer API key or OAuth. Anonymous requests return 401. Use this endpoint if you want OAuth sign-in or enforced auth.
Task MCP	https://task-mcp.parallel.ai/mcp	Yes. Either perform the OAuth flow or pass your Parallel API key as a Bearer token.

When passing a Parallel API key, use the provider-specific field:

• OpenAI Responses API — headers: { Authorization: "Bearer <YOUR_PARALLEL_API_KEY>" } on the MCP tool.
• Anthropic Messages API — authorization_token: "<YOUR_PARALLEL_API_KEY>" on the MCP server entry.

The Search MCP examples below include the Authorization header / authorization_token field to show the higher-rate-limit variant. Remove that line entirely for the free, no-auth default — it’s not required for the server to accept the request.

OpenAI Integration

Search MCP with OpenAI

The Authorization header on the MCP tool is optional — the Search MCP is free to use without it. Include a Parallel API key only to unlock higher rate limits.

cURL

curl https://api.openai.com/v1/responses \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "model": "gpt-5",
    "tools": [
      {
        "type": "mcp",
        "server_label": "parallel_web_search",
        "server_url": "https://search.parallel.ai/mcp",
        "headers": {
          "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_PARALLEL_API_KEY"
        },
        "require_approval": "never"
      }
    ],
    "input": "Who is the CEO of Apple?"
  }'

Task MCP with OpenAI

cURL

curl https://api.openai.com/v1/responses \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "model": "gpt-5",
    "tools": [
      {
        "type": "mcp",
        "server_label": "parallel_task",
        "server_url": "https://task-mcp.parallel.ai/mcp",
        "headers": {
          "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_PARALLEL_API_KEY"
        },
        "require_approval": "never"
      }
    ],
    "input": "Create a deep research task about the latest developments in AI safety research"
  }'

Anthropic Integration

Search MCP with Anthropic

The authorization_token on the MCP server entry is optional — the Search MCP is free to use without it. Include a Parallel API key only to unlock higher rate limits.

cURL

curl https://api.anthropic.com/v1/messages \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" \
  -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
  -H "anthropic-beta: mcp-client-2025-04-04" \
  -d '{
    "model": "claude-sonnet-4-5",
    "max_tokens": 8000,
    "messages": [
      {
        "role": "user",
        "content": "What is the latest in AI research?"
      }
    ],
    "mcp_servers": [
      {
        "type": "url",
        "url": "https://search.parallel.ai/mcp",
        "name": "parallel-search",
        "authorization_token": "YOUR_PARALLEL_API_KEY"
      }
    ]
  }'

Task MCP with Anthropic

cURL

curl https://api.anthropic.com/v1/messages \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" \
  -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
  -H "anthropic-beta: mcp-client-2025-04-04" \
  -d '{
    "model": "claude-sonnet-4-5",
    "max_tokens": 8000,
    "messages": [
      {
        "role": "user",
        "content": "Create a deep research task about the latest developments in AI safety research"
      }
    ],
    "mcp_servers": [
      {
        "type": "url",
        "url": "https://task-mcp.parallel.ai/mcp",
        "name": "parallel-task",
        "authorization_token": "YOUR_PARALLEL_API_KEY"
      }
    ]
  }'

Limitations

Context Window Constraints

The Task MCP is designed for smaller parallel tasks and experimentation, constrained by:

• Context window size - Large datasets may overflow the available context
• Max output tokens - Results must fit within model output limitations
• Data source size - Initial data should be appropriately sized for the model

For large-scale operations, consider using the Parallel APIs directly or other integration methods.

Asynchronous Nature

Due to current MCP/LLM client limitations:

• Tasks run asynchronously but don’t automatically wait for completion
• Users must explicitly request results in follow-up turns
• Multiple workflow steps require manual progression through conversation turns

Model Requirements

• Search MCP - Works well with smaller models (GPT OSS 20B+)
• Task MCP - Requires larger models with strong reasoning capabilities (e.g. GPT-5, Claude Sonnet 4.5)
• Smaller models may result in degraded output quality for complex tasks

Reach out to be among the first to overcome current limitations as we continue improving the platform.