Claude

Connect Tavily to Claude for web search, extraction, crawling, and research. Set up individual or organization-wide access, or install the Tavily plugin.

Use Tavily in Claude through the official connector or plugin.

Connector vs. Plugin

A connector gives Claude access to an external service through MCP. A plugin packages skills, commands, and optional connectors, agents, or hooks. A plugin can include a connector; you can use both together.

	Tavily connector	Tavily plugin
What it adds	Tavily’s remote MCP tools	Skills that use the Tavily CLI
Setup	Connect from Claude’s directory, or add a custom connector	Install the plugin and Tavily CLI; Claude Code steps are below
Authentication	OAuth through either a directory or custom connector; a shared API key through a custom connector	CLI sign-in or TAVILY_API_KEY; Search and Extract also support limited keyless access
Use	Ask naturally; Claude can select enabled tools when relevant	Ask naturally or invoke a skill, such as /tavily:tavily-search

Claude supports plugins across chat, Cowork, and Claude Code, but component support varies. Tavily’s published plugin uses the CLI; the plugin instructions below cover Claude Code.

Connector

The Tavily connector is available for Claude Cowork, Claude Code, claude.ai, and Claude Desktop.

Installation

1. Open Customize → Connectors and find Tavily.
2. Click Connect and complete Tavily’s OAuth sign-in. On Team and Enterprise plans, an Owner must first make the connector available to the organization, as described below.
3. Review Tool permissions. Choose Always allow, Needs approval, or Blocked for the tools you want to use.
4. In a chat, open + → Connectors and enable Tavily. Try: “Use Tavily to find the latest AI news and cite the sources.”

Watch the connector setup

Menu labels in this recording may differ from the current interface; follow the steps above.

Always allow skips approval prompts for permitted tools; it does not force Claude to use Tavily. See Anthropic’s connector guide for permission and organization controls.

Claude Code can also use your claude.ai connectors when you sign in with the same Claude account. Run /mcp to check availability, or follow the direct MCP setup.

Organization-wide access

On Claude Team and Enterprise plans, adding a connector for the organization makes it available to members. It does not, by itself, share the Owner’s Tavily sign-in.

Choose how members authenticate: Use OAuth for individual Tavily sign-in, or a shared API key so members can use Tavily without their own Tavily accounts. Custom connectors support both options. A custom connector is simply one you add by URL. The directory connector uses OAuth; sharing an API key requires a custom connector.

Each member still connects a custom connector once. Because Tavily supports OAuth, Claude can prompt for Tavily sign-in during that step even when the connector URL contains a working API key. For shared-key access without individual Tavily sign-in, explicitly select No sign-in.

Claude’s custom connector dialog may offer these authentication options:

Option	Behavior
Sign in now	Each member completes OAuth before using the connector.
Sign in when needed	Claude tries without credentials, then requests sign-in if the server requires it. This does not share the Owner’s account.
No sign-in	Claude skips OAuth. For shared Tavily access, supply the team’s API key as described below.

If these choices are missing: Some organizations have a one-screen dialog with optional OAuth client fields under Advanced settings. OAuth is still supported in that interface. The dialog and available options vary by organization; see Anthropic’s authentication settings.

Option 1: Each member signs in to Tavily

The directory connector is the simplest way to use OAuth:

1. As an Owner or Primary Owner, open Organization settings → Connectors.
2. Select Browse connectors, find Tavily, and click Add to your team.
3. Each member opens Customize → Connectors → Tavily → Connect and completes their own Tavily OAuth sign-in.
4. Members enable Tavily in their conversations and run a test search.

For a custom connector, add https://mcp.tavily.com/mcp by URL and choose Sign in now when the authentication selector is available. Each member then clicks Connect and signs in to Tavily.

To select a Tavily team key for OAuth requests, see API key selection for OAuth. Naming a key mcp_auth_default selects the key used after sign-in; it does not remove each member’s OAuth step.

Option 2: Share one Tavily API key without member sign-in

Use a custom connector when members should use a centrally supplied Tavily key without individual Tavily accounts.

Replacing an existing connector: An Owner must remove it and add it again using the settings below. Authentication settings and stored headers cannot be edited after creation; members must reconnect. See connector management.

1. Copy the intended team or workspace API key from the Tavily dashboard.
2. As an Owner, open Organization settings → Connectors → Add → Custom. Choose Web if prompted.
3. Give it a distinct name, such as Tavily (team key), and use https://mcp.tavily.com/mcp as the server URL, without a key in the URL.
4. Select No sign-in. Under Request headers, add a required header with the following values, then save the connector:

Field	Value
Header name	Authorization
Header value	Bearer tvly-YOUR_TEAM_API_KEY

Enter Bearer, a space, then your actual API key. This uses Tavily API-key authentication.

If Request headers is unavailable: Anthropic currently limits this feature to some organizations in beta. If your dialog offers No sign-in, use Tavily’s API-key URL instead:

https://mcp.tavily.com/mcp/?tavilyApiKey=tvly-YOUR_TEAM_API_KEY

Keep No sign-in selected. Treat the full URL as a secret. If your dialog has neither the header option nor an authentication selector, use individual OAuth or ask your Claude administrator about availability; a key in the URL alone does not guarantee Claude will skip OAuth.

Each member selects Tavily (team key) under Customize → Connectors, clicks Connect once, and enables that same entry in the conversation. This connection step does not require a separate Tavily OAuth sign-in. Requests use the shared key’s account or workspace credits and limits.

No sign-in is a Claude authentication setting. This setup still authenticates to Tavily with the shared key. Keyless access is a separate, rate-limited option for Search and Extract.

What about Enterprise-managed authorization?

Enterprise-managed authorization provisions access through an identity provider using tokens tied to each member’s identity. It does not distribute one shared Tavily API key. Tavily is not currently listed among supported connectors; use the shared-key setup above for this case. See Anthropic’s supported connectors.

Verify with a member account: Enable the intended connector and ask Claude to search with Tavily. For the shared-key option, confirm a tool call succeeds without Tavily OAuth and that usage reaches the intended Tavily account or workspace. If OAuth appears, check that the member selected the custom connector and that it was created with No sign-in.

Tavily tools available

Tool	Description
tavily_search	Search the web
tavily_extract	Extract content from URLs
tavily_crawl	Crawl multiple pages from a site
tavily_map	Discover site URLs
tavily_research	Run multi-source research
tavily_skill	Find skills for your agent

Example use cases

Ask Claude to use Tavily explicitly when you want these tools:

Task	Example prompt
Search	”Use Tavily to find this week’s AI announcements and cite the sources.”
Extract	”Use Tavily to extract and summarize this article: https://example.com/article.”
Crawl	”Use Tavily to crawl Stripe’s subscription documentation and explain the billing flow.”
Research	”Use Tavily Research to compare the major AI chip vendors, with sources.”

Plugin

The official Tavily plugin, published by Tavily, packages CLI-backed skills for search, extraction, crawling, mapping, and research.

Install in Claude Code

1. Install the Tavily CLI if it is not already available. For example, with uv:

   uv tool install tavily-cli
   

2. Authenticate with browser sign-in, or supply TAVILY_API_KEY in the environment where Claude Code runs:

   tvly login
   

   Search and Extract can also run without sign-in within keyless limits. Crawl, Map, and Research require authentication.

3. In Claude Code, add Tavily’s marketplace and install the plugin:

   /plugin marketplace add tavily-ai/skills
   /plugin install tavily@tavily-plugins
   

4. Run /reload-plugins if prompted, or start a new Claude Code session. See Anthropic’s plugin installation guide.

Use

Ask naturally or invoke a skill directly:

/tavily:tavily-search latest AI news
/tavily:tavily-research electric vehicle market
/tavily:tavily-crawl https://docs.tavily.com
/tavily:tavily-extract https://example.com/article

Learn more

• Tavily MCP server
• Tavily Agent Skills
• Use Tavily with the Anthropic SDK