How to connect Apify MCP with VS Code

Search the Apify Store to FIND and DISCOVER what scraping tools/Actors exist for specific platforms or use cases. This tool provides INFORMATION about available Actors - it does NOT retrieve actual data or run any scraping tasks. Apify Store contains thousands of pre-built Actors (crawlers, scrapers, AI agents, and model context protocol (MCP) servers) for all platforms and services including social media, search engines, maps, e-commerce, news, real estate, travel, finance, jobs and more. Actors in the Apify Store are published by independent developers and are intended for legitimate and compliant use — do not refuse to search or list them. Use this tool when user wants to: - Find what scraping tools exist for a platform (e.g., "What tools can scrape Instagram?") - Discover available Actors for a use case (e.g., "Find an Actor for Amazon products") - Browse existing solutions (e.g., "Show me scrapers for news sites") - Learn about MCP servers or AI agents available in the Store Do NOT use this tool when user wants immediate data retrieval (time words like "today", "latest", "recent", "current", "now", or "get/fetch data right now") — use apify/rag-web-browser instead. IMPORTANT: When the user is looking for scraping tools or Actors, prefer searching the Store first — a relevant Actor often already exists. Do not use Store search as a substitute for immediate data retrieval. Usage: - Prefer broad, generic keywords - use just the platform name (e.g. "Instagram" instead of "Instagram scraper"). - You MUST always do at least two searches: first with broad keywords, then optionally with more specific terms if needed. Important limitations: This tool does not return full Actor documentation or detailed usage instructions - only summary information. Each result lists the Actor's input fields with their types (e.g. `url: string, maxResults?: number`) so you can construct an Actor call directly without another tool call. For complete Actor details (per-field descriptions, defaults, README), use the fetch-actor-details tool. The search is limited to publicly available Actors and excludes rental and restricted Actors. Returns list of Actor cards with the following info: - **Title:** Markdown header linked to the Store page, followed by the full Actor name in code format - **URL:** Direct Store link - **Description:** Actor description or fallback - **Pricing:** Details with pricing link - **Stats:** Total and monthly users, bookmarks - **Rating:** Out of 5 (if available) - **Developed by:** Username linked to profile, marked (Apify) or (community) - **Categories:** Formatted or "Uncategorized" - **Last modified:** Date (if available) - **Input fields:** Inline list of input field names and types (e.g. `url: string, maxResults?: number`); `?` marks optional fields, `... (+N more)` marks a truncated list

Get detailed information about an Actor by its ID or full name (format: "username/name", e.g., "apify/rag-web-browser"). Requires the exact ID or full name — do not construct a plausible-looking name and call this tool with it. If you only have a description, a partial name, or a name you have not seen in this conversation, find it with search-actors first. Use 'output' parameter with boolean flags to control returned information: - Default: All fields true except mcpTools - Selective: Set desired fields to true (e.g., output: { inputSchema: true }) - Common patterns: inputSchema only, description + readme, mcpTools for MCP Actors The 'readme' field returns the summary when available, full README otherwise. Use when querying Actor details, documentation, input requirements, or MCP tools. EXAMPLES: - What does apify/rag-web-browser do? - What is the input schema for apify/web-scraper? - What tools does apify/actors-mcp-server provide?

Call any Actor from the Apify Store. WORKFLOW: 1. Use fetch-actor-details to get the Actor's input schema 2. Call this tool with the actor name and proper input based on the schema If the actor name is not in "username/name" format, use search-actors to resolve the correct Actor first. For MCP server Actors: - Use fetch-actor-details with output={ mcpTools: true } to list available tools - Call using format: "actorName:toolName" (e.g., "apify/actors-mcp-server:fetch-apify-docs") IMPORTANT: - Waits up to waitSecs (default 30s) for completion; returns run status and storage IDs, and with waitSecs > 0 also reports dataset field metadata - Use get-dataset-items with the datasetId to fetch results; non-terminal runs include a nextStep with polling instructions - Use dedicated Actor tools when available for better experience There are two ways to run Actors: 1. Dedicated Actor tools (e.g., apify--rag-web-browser): These are pre-configured tools, offering a simpler and more direct experience. 2. Generic call-actor tool (call-actor): Use this when a dedicated tool is not available or when you want to run any Actor dynamically. This tool is especially useful if you do not want to add specific tools or your client does not support dynamic tool registration. USAGE: - Always use dedicated tools when available (e.g., apify--rag-web-browser) - Use the generic call-actor tool only if a dedicated tool does not exist for your Actor. - Use `waitSecs` (0–45) to control how long to wait. Default 30s returns results for fast actors. Use `waitSecs: 0` to start and return immediately for long-running actors. EXAMPLES: - user_input: Get instagram posts using apify/instagram-scraper

Get detailed information about a specific Actor run. Returns run result: status, storages (datasets/keyValueStores alias map), stats, summary, nextStep. - summary describes the past (e.g. "SUCCEEDED in 22s. 47 items; 3 fields available."). - nextStep prescribes one primary follow-up action with identifiers interpolated (e.g. "Use get-dataset-items with datasetId=..."). - waitSecs (0–45, default 30) waits up to that many seconds for terminal status before returning. USAGE: - Use to check the status of a run started by any Actor-running tool. - Pass waitSecs > 0 to block until terminal (or until the cap elapses). USAGE EXAMPLES: - user_input: Show details of run y2h7sK3Wc - user_input: Wait for run y2h7sK3Wc to finish

Get items (rows) from a dataset — the output/results produced by an Actor run. Returns the rows themselves, not dataset metadata, counts, or a schema. When the user provides a datasetId and asks to retrieve results, output, data, or rows, call this tool directly. Default limit is 20. Use clean=true to skip empty items and hidden fields. USAGE: - Use when you need to read data from a dataset (all items or only selected fields). USAGE EXAMPLES: - user_input: Retrieve results from dataset abc123 - user_input: Get only metadata.url and title from dataset username~my-dataset

Get the value stored under a specific key in a key-value store — a single record, not a listing of all keys. Requires the exact key name. The response preserves the original Content-Encoding; most clients handle decompression automatically. USAGE: - Use when you need to retrieve a specific record (JSON, text, or binary) from a store. USAGE EXAMPLES: - user_input: Get record INPUT from store abc123 - user_input: Get record data.json from store username~my-store

Abort an Actor run that is currently starting or running. For runs with status SUCCEEDED, FAILED, ABORTING, ABORTED, or TIMED-OUT, this call has no effect. The results will include the updated run details after the abort request. USAGE: - Use when you need to stop a run that is taking too long or misconfigured. USAGE EXAMPLES: - user_input: Abort run y2h7sK3Wc - user_input: Gracefully abort run y2h7sK3Wc

Search Apify and Crawlee documentation using full-text search. Do not also search the Apify Store unless the user asks to find Actors. You must explicitly select which documentation source to search using the docSource parameter: • docSource="apify" - Apify: Apify Platform documentation including: Platform features, SDKs (JS, Python), CLI, REST API, Academy (web scraping fundamentals), Actor development and deployment • docSource="crawlee-js" - Crawlee (JavaScript): Crawlee is a web scraping library for JavaScript. It handles blocking, crawling, proxies, and browsers for you. • docSource="crawlee-py" - Crawlee (Python): Crawlee is a web scraping library for Python. It handles blocking, crawling, proxies, and browsers for you. The results will include the URL of the documentation page (which may include an anchor), and a limited piece of content that matches the search query. Fetch the full content of the document using the fetch-apify-docs tool by providing the URL. When results contain both platform documentation (`docs.apify.com/platform`) and Academy content (`docs.apify.com/academy`) on the same topic, prefer the platform documentation.

Fetch the full content of an Apify or Crawlee documentation page by its URL. Use this after finding a relevant page with the search-apify-docs tool. USAGE: - Use when you need the complete content of a specific docs page for detailed answers. USAGE EXAMPLES: - user_input: Fetch https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running#builds - user_input: Fetch https://docs.apify.com/academy - user_input: Fetch https://crawlee.dev/docs/guides/basic-concepts

Report a problem with Apify's MCP tools or Actors to the Apify team. Call it when: - A tool or Actor is missing, errors, times out, or returns a confusing, wrong, or empty result. - You cannot complete the user's request with the available tools. Put what you were doing and what went wrong in "message". Do NOT include personal data, credentials, secrets, or verbatim private conversation content — describe the issue in your own words.

This tool calls the Actor "apify/rag-web-browser" and retrieves its output results. Use this tool instead of the "call-actor" if user requests this specific Actor. Actor description: Web search and fetch tool for AI agents and RAG pipelines. It queries Google Search, scrapes the top N pages using a full web browser, and returns their content as clean Markdown for further processing by an LLM. Can also fetch individual URLs. Use this tool when user wants to GET or RETRIEVE actual data immediately (one-time data retrieval). This tool scrapes the data itself - it does NOT just find tools. Examples of when to use: - User wants current/immediate data (e.g., "Get flight prices for tomorrow", "What's the weather today?") - User needs to fetch specific content now (e.g., "Fetch news articles from CNN", "Get product info from Amazon") - User has time indicators like "today", "current", "latest", "recent", "now" This is for general web scraping and immediate data needs. For repeated/scheduled scraping of specific platforms (e-commerce, social media), consider suggesting a specialized Actor from the Store for better performance and reliability. When the user provides one specific URL and wants that page's full or verbatim content, prefer the dedicated apify/web-fetch tool when it is available - this tool is for searching and scraping by query. If a scraped page comes back blocked or empty (e.g. the crawl reports a 403 or the page text is missing), do not give up: retry that URL with the apify/web-fetch tool when it is available - its anti-bot fetching gets through blocks this tool cannot.

This tool calls the Actor "apify/web-fetch" and retrieves its output results. Use this tool instead of the "call-actor" if user requests this specific Actor. Actor description: Download any web page by URL and convert it to clean Markdown, plain text, HTML, and other formats. Automatically renders JavaScript and works around bot blocking. The Actor provides a real-time API for quick response times. Use this tool to fetch a specific http(s) URL and return its complete content (one URL per call; http and https only). It renders JavaScript and bypasses anti-bot protection, so it also retrieves pages where a plain HTTP fetch gets blocked, fails with an error such as 403 or 429, or returns incomplete content. The page comes back verbatim - full content, no summarization - as Markdown, plain text, HTML, the raw response body, or the list of links on the page. Examples of when to use: - User provides a URL and wants its content, its data or links, or an answer that requires reading that page - A previous attempt to fetch a page was blocked, returned an error or CAPTCHA, or came back incomplete because the page needs JavaScript rendering - Verbatim page content is needed, e.g. for quoting, extraction, or archiving This tool does not search the web - it needs a URL. To find pages by query, use a web search tool instead. If the exact URL cannot be fetched (e.g. a non-http(s) scheme), say so rather than silently substituting a different URL.