Use screenshotbase with AI agents (MCP)
screenshotbase ships a hosted Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. AI agents and assistants — Claude, Cursor, VS Code and any other MCP-capable client — can call the API as native tools, no SDK or glue code required.
https://api.screenshotbase.com/mcp
Connect in seconds
Using Claude Code:
claude mcp add --transport http screenshotbase https://api.screenshotbase.com/mcp --header "apikey: YOUR_API_KEY"
Or add it to any MCP client configuration:
{
"mcpServers": {
"screenshotbase": {
"url": "https://api.screenshotbase.com/mcp",
"headers": { "apikey": "YOUR_API_KEY" }
}
}
}
All requests, including listing the available tools, need an API key: sign up for a free API key and send it as the apikey header.
Available tools
| Tool | Endpoint | Description |
|---|---|---|
take | GET /v1/take | Take a screenshot, PDF or markdown of a URL |
takePost | POST /v1/take | Take a screenshot, PDF or markdown of HTML or a URL |
getStatus | GET /v1/status | Account quota status |
listDevices | GET /v1/devices | List the devices of viewport_device |
listJobs | GET /v1/jobs | List your async jobs |
getJob | GET /v1/jobs/{job_id} | Get an async job |
getJobResult | GET /v1/jobs/{job_id}/result | Download an async job’s result |
deleteJob | DELETE /v1/jobs/{job_id} | Cancel and delete an async job |
Screenshots, PDFs and markdown
With format: "markdown", the tools return the page’s content as markdown text, which the agent can use directly (see URL to markdown).
A screenshot comes back as an image the agent can look at directly, and a PDF as an embedded file after a line of text that names it. Nothing is stored for that.
A file over 3 MB, or an image over 8,000 pixels on a side (a long full-page screenshot gets there quickly), is too large for a tool result: the tool answers an error that tells the agent to pass upload: true, and that call is not billed. With upload: true the tool returns JSON with the public url of the stored file, which the agent can fetch, show or pass on. Every render costs one request with or without upload: a screenshot, a PDF or a render of HTML. Stored files can be opened by anyone with the URL.
Slow pages
For a page that takes long to load or render, pass async: true to take or takePost: the tool answers at once with a job, and the agent fetches the file with getJob and getJobResult (see async jobs and webhooks).
Quotas and errors
Tool calls are metered like regular API requests and return the same machine-readable errors, so your agent always knows how to proceed. Full details in the MCP documentation.