Apify Actors MCP Server

Enable your AI assistant to extract data from social media, search engines, maps, e-commerce sites, and any other website using thousands of ready-made scrapers, crawlers, and automation tools from the Apify Store.

What This Skill Does

This skill connects your AI assistant to the Apify Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, providing access to over 8,000 Apify Actors - specialized tools for web scraping, data extraction, and automation. With this skill, you can:

Setup Instructions

Step 1: Get Your Apify API Token

1. Sign up for a free account at [apify.com](https://apify.com)

2. Navigate to Settings → Integrations → API tokens

3. Copy your API token (starts with `apify_api_`)

Step 2: Configure the MCP Server

The Apify MCP Server can be used in two ways:

#### Option A: Hosted Server (Recommended - Supports OAuth)

Use the hosted endpoint: `https://mcp.apify.com`

**For Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code:**

Add to your MCP settings with your API token as an environment variable.

**For Claude.ai web:**

Connect using OAuth through the interface (no manual token needed).

#### Option B: Local Server (stdio)

Install and run locally using npx:

```json

{

"mcpServers": {

"apify": {

"command": "npx",

"args": ["@apify/actors-mcp-server"],

"env": {

"APIFY_TOKEN": "your_apify_api_token_here"

}

}

}

}

```

Step 3: Verify Connection

Once configured, verify the connection by asking your AI assistant:

"Search for Instagram scraping actors on Apify"

You should see results from the Apify Store.

Usage Guide

Basic Workflow

1. **Discover actors** - Search for actors that match your use case

2. **View details** - Get information about an actor's capabilities and input parameters

3. **Call the actor** - Execute the actor with your parameters

4. **Retrieve results** - Access the extracted data from the actor run

Example Use Cases

#### Extract Instagram Posts

"Use the Instagram Scraper actor to get the last 20 posts from @natgeo including captions, likes, and comments"

#### Get Google Maps Business Data

"Find all restaurants in San Francisco with ratings above 4.5 using the Google Maps Extractor, and include their contact details"

#### Monitor Amazon Prices

"Track prices for iPhone 15 on Amazon using the Amazon Product Scraper and return the top 10 results with prices and reviews"

#### Scrape Search Results

"Search Google for 'best AI tools 2026' and scrape the top 10 results with their titles, URLs, and descriptions"

Available Tools

The MCP server provides these tool categories (enable as needed):

**Actors** (enabled by default):

**Documentation** (enabled by default):

**Storage**:

**Runs**:

Pre-configured Actors

By default, the server includes:

Advanced Configuration

Customize Loaded Tools

Configure which tool categories to load via the `tools` parameter:

```

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=actors,storage,runs

```

Or load specific actors:

```

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=apify/instagram-scraper,apify/google-maps-scraper

```

Enable All Tools

Load everything:

```

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=*

```

Visit [mcp.apify.com](https://mcp.apify.com) for an interactive configuration UI.

Important Notes

Troubleshooting

**"Actor not found"**: Search for actors first using `search-actors` to verify the exact actor ID

**"Insufficient credits"**: Check your Apify account balance at console.apify.com

**"Authentication failed"**: Verify your API token is correct and not expired

**Tools not appearing**: Restart your MCP client after configuration changes

Learn More