Agent Skills and MCPC

Apify Agent Skills give AI agents pre-built capabilities for web scraping, data extraction, and building Apify Actors. Skills work with Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI, and other coding agents that support Model Context Protocol (MCP).

MCPC is a universal command-line client for MCP that connects your AI agents to any MCP server - including Apify's. This CLI utility reduces token usage and context size when working with MCP servers.

Together, they let you add Apify's scraping and automation tools to any AI agent with a single command.

Prerequisites

An Apify account with an API token
Node.js version 20.6 or later
An AI coding agent that supports MCP (Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code with Copilot, Codex, Gemini CLI, etc.)

Install Agent Skills

Agent Skills are pre-built skill files that AI coding assistants automatically discover and use for context. Install them in your project directory:

npx skills add apify/agent-skills

This adds skill definitions to your project. No additional configuration is needed - your AI assistant picks them up automatically.

Available skills

The apify/agent-skills repository contains official Apify skills. The community-maintained apify/awesome-skills repository contains additional skills.

Skill mechanics

Each skill is a Markdown file (SKILL.md) that describes a domain-specific capability and tools the agent should use to execute the desired task. Skills can be invoked directly by /slash-commands and agents can also load them dynamically based on your prompt. Apify Agent Skills give AI coding assistants the ability to:

Search and run Actors from Apify Store
Extract data from websites, social media, and e-commerce platforms
Develop, test, and publish Actors in Apify Store

Skills include bundled scripts that communicate with the Apify API to execute Actor calls. They use your APIFY_TOKEN from the .env file.

Set up your API token

Agent Skills need your Apify API token to run Actors. Create a .env file in your project root:

APIFY_TOKEN=your_api_token

Get your token from the Integrations section in Apify Console.

Keep your token private

Don't commit the .env file to version control. Add it to your .gitignore file.

Install MCPC

MCP CLI (mcpc) is the command-line bridge between AI agents and MCP servers. Install it globally:

npm install -g @apify/mcpc

Connect to the Apify MCP server

Authenticate and create a session:

# Log in with OAuth (opens browser)
mcpc login mcp.apify.com

# Create a named session
mcpc connect mcp.apify.com @apify

You can also authenticate with a bearer token:

mcpc connect https://mcp.apify.com @apify \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN"

Explore available tools

# List all tools in your session
mcpc @apify tools-list

# Get details about a specific tool
mcpc @apify tools-get search-actors

# Call a tool
mcpc @apify tools-call search-actors keywords:="website crawler"

Use the interactive shell

The interactive shell lets you explore tools and test calls:

mcpc @apify shell

JSON mode for scripting

Add --json to any command for machine-readable output. This is useful for piping results into scripts or other tools:

mcpc @apify tools-list --json
mcpc @apify tools-call search-actors keywords:="web scraper" --json

Configure AI coding assistants

After installing Agent Skills and setting up your API token, configure your AI coding assistant to use them.

Claude Code
Cursor
VS Code
Other tools

Add skills from the plugin marketplace:

# Add the marketplace
/plugin marketplace add https://github.com/apify/agent-skills

# Install a skill
/plugin install apify-ultimate-scraper@apify-agent-skills

Ask your assistant to scrape data, extract information, or run Actors.

Cursor automatically discovers skill files (SKILL.md) in your project directory after running npx skills add apify/agent-skills. No additional configuration is needed.

VS Code with an AI extension (GitHub Copilot, Cline, or Roo Code) automatically discovers skill files in your project directory after running npx skills add apify/agent-skills. No additional configuration is needed.

For Codex, Gemini CLI, and other tools:

Run npx skills add apify/agent-skills to add skill files to your project.
Most AI tools automatically discover AGENTS.md or SKILL.md files in your project directory.

Connect the Apify MCP server for extra capabilities

For additional MCP-based tools like documentation search, you can optionally connect the Apify MCP server. This is not required for Agent Skills to work.

MCPC features

Session management

MCPC maintains persistent sessions that survive across commands:

# List active sessions
mcpc

# Create a session
mcpc connect mcp.apify.com @apify

# Restart a session
mcpc restart @apify

# Close a session
mcpc close @apify

OAuth authentication

MCPC stores credentials securely in your OS keychain:

# Log in (opens browser for OAuth flow)
mcpc login mcp.apify.com

# Create a named profile for multiple accounts
mcpc login mcp.apify.com --profile work

# Use a specific profile
mcpc connect mcp.apify.com @session --profile work

# Log out
mcpc logout mcp.apify.com

MCP proxy

Expose authenticated sessions as local proxy servers to sandbox AI agents without revealing credentials:

# Start a proxy on port 8080
mcpc connect mcp.apify.com @relay --proxy 8080

# Connect through the proxy
mcpc connect localhost:8080 @sandboxed

Argument syntax

Pass arguments to tool calls using key:=value syntax:

Input	Parsed type
`count:=10`	Number
`enabled:=true`	Boolean
`greeting:=hello`	String

You can also pass inline JSON or pipe from stdin:

# Inline JSON
mcpc @apify tools-call search-actors '{"keywords":"web scraper"}'

# Pipe from stdin
echo '{"keywords":"web scraper"}' | mcpc @apify tools-call search-actors

Resources

Agent Skills repository - Official Apify skills
Awesome Skills repository - Community-contributed skills
MCPC repository - MCPC source code and documentation
Read the MCPC introduction - Blog post with detailed walkthrough
Apify MCP server - Full MCP server documentation
Build Actors with AI - Guide to AI-assisted Actor development