CompetLab MCP Server

Competitive intelligence for AI agents — see how LLMs rank your brand.

More B2B buyers are asking AI before they Google. CompetLab monitors competitors across 5 dimensions — including AI Visibility, which tracks how ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini mention and rank brands. This MCP server gives your AI agent access to all of it: dashboards, historical data, alerts, and strategic briefings. No other CI platform does this.

Supported Clients

Works with any MCP-compatible client:

• Claude Desktop / Claude Web
• Claude Code
• Cursor
• VS Code (Copilot)
• Windsurf
• Cline

Quick Start

Two ways to connect — pick the one that fits your setup:

Get your API key: app.competlab.com > Organization Settings > API Keys

Option 1: Remote Server (recommended)

Server URL: https://mcp.competlab.com/mcp Auth: API key via CL-API-Key header (or api_key query parameter)

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http \
  --header "CL-API-Key: YOUR_COMPETLAB_API_KEY" \
  competlab https://mcp.competlab.com/mcp

Cursor

Add to .cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "competlab": {
      "url": "https://mcp.competlab.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "CL-API-Key": "YOUR_COMPETLAB_API_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

VS Code

Add to .vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "inputs": [
    {
      "type": "promptString",
      "id": "competlab-api-key",
      "description": "CompetLab API Key (starts with cl_live_)",
      "password": true
    }
  ],
  "servers": {
    "competlab": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.competlab.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "CL-API-Key": "${input:competlab-api-key}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Note: VS Code uses "servers" (not "mcpServers") and supports secure input prompts via ${input:id}.

Windsurf

Add to ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "competlab": {
      "serverUrl": "https://mcp.competlab.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "CL-API-Key": "YOUR_COMPETLAB_API_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

Note: Windsurf uses "serverUrl" (not "url").

Cline

Add to cline_mcp_settings.json (or configure via Cline UI > Installed > Advanced MCP Settings):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "competlab": {
      "url": "https://mcp.competlab.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "CL-API-Key": "YOUR_COMPETLAB_API_KEY"
      },
      "disabled": false
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop / Claude Web

Claude Desktop and Claude Web only support URL-based auth (no custom headers). Use the api_key query parameter:

Go to Settings > MCP and add the server with this URL:

https://mcp.competlab.com/mcp?api_key=YOUR_COMPETLAB_API_KEY

Option 2: Local Server (stdio)

Run the server locally via stdin/stdout. Useful for Claude Desktop, Glama, or environments that prefer stdio transport.

git clone https://github.com/competlab/competlab-mcp-server.git
cd competlab-mcp-server
npm install
npm run build

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport stdio \
  --env COMPETLAB_API_KEY=YOUR_COMPETLAB_API_KEY \
  competlab node dist/index.js

Claude Desktop

Add to your Claude Desktop config (claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "competlab": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["dist/index.js"],
      "cwd": "/path/to/competlab-mcp-server",
      "env": {
        "COMPETLAB_API_KEY": "YOUR_COMPETLAB_API_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

Generic stdio

COMPETLAB_API_KEY=YOUR_COMPETLAB_API_KEY node dist/index.js

The server reads JSON-RPC from stdin and writes responses to stdout.

See examples/ for ready-to-paste config files for each client.

What is CompetLab?

Competitive intelligence for the AI era. One platform, 5 dimensions, monitored automatically:

AI Visibility is what makes CompetLab unique — no other CI platform tracks how LLMs recommend brands in real time.

Start free trial (14 days, no credit card) | Learn more

Available Tools

11 groups. 33 tools. 30 are read-only; 3 are async-scan starters that create a scan record (start_tech_stack_scan, start_trust_signals_scan, start_agent_adoption_scan).

Projects & Competitors

Tech & Trust Profile

Content Intelligence

Positioning

Pricing Intelligence

AI Visibility

Strategic Briefing, Alerts & Schedules

Free Tools (no project setup required)

Run these against any public domain — no projectId needed. The sync tools return immediately; the async scans return a scanId you poll every 5–10 seconds.

All paginated tools accept page and limit parameters. Check pagination.hasMore in the response to fetch more pages.

Example Prompts

Once connected, try asking your AI agent:

• "What changed on my competitors' pricing pages this week?"
• "How does ChatGPT rank my brand vs competitors for [industry query]?"
• "Show me the strategic briefing — what should I fix first?"
• "Compare content strategies across all my tracked competitors"
• "What critical alerts fired in the last 7 days?"
• "Track how my AI visibility score changed over the last 3 months"
• "Which competitors have better security headers than us?"
• "Run a tech-stack scan on stripe.com — what are they using?"
• "Check if openai.com blocks AI crawlers in their robots.txt"
• "Fetch g2.com/some-listing with cleanHtml and summarize the page"

See examples/prompts.md for more prompts organized by use case.

Authentication

Getting an API key

1. Sign up at app.competlab.com/register (free 14-day trial, no credit card)
2. Go to Organization Settings > API Keys
3. Create a new key — it starts with cl_live_

Two authentication methods

One API key covers your entire organization. Most tools are read-only; the three start_*_scan tools create scan records under your account (no edits to existing data). The fetch_url tool is rate-limited at 60 req/min per API key (tighter than the 1000/min default for other free tools).

Pricing

MCP access is included with every CompetLab subscription ($99/mo). Free trial includes full MCP access.

Troubleshooting

Links

• MCP Server Documentation
• REST API Reference
• TypeScript SDK (npm install @competlab/sdk)
• Privacy Policy
• Start Free Trial

Support

• Bug reports: GitHub Issues
• Email: support@competlab.com
• Documentation: competlab.com/developers

License

MIT (covers documentation and configs in this repo) — see LICENSE

The CompetLab MCP server and platform are commercial software. See competlab.com/terms-and-conditions.

Built by the CompetLab team. Competitive intelligence for the AI era.