Welcome to the official repository overview for Oxylabs' Web API Skills. This guide is a developer-focused, technical reference covering what Web API Skills do. Skills that teach a coding agent to use the Oxylabs Web API for live web search and web fetch.
| Skill | Use it for |
|---|---|
oxylabs-web-api |
Mechanics — the MCP tools, endpoint parameters, latency, errors, retries, and a CLI helper |
oxylabs-web-research |
The research method — search, pick sources, read, cite |
migrate-to-oxylabs |
Porting off Tavily, Exa, Firecrawl, Perplexity, Brave or Linkup |
Works with any skills-aware agent (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, …):
npx skills add oxylabs/web-api-skillsClaude Code can instead take the repo as a plugin — skills and the MCP server wired together:
/plugin marketplace add oxylabs/web-api-skills
/plugin install oxylabs-web-api
Skills are plain directories, so git clone + ./install.sh (or --project for a
repo-local install, or a bare cp -R skills/* ~/.claude/skills/) also works.
- Log in to the Oxylabs dashboard.
- Create a Web API instance — keys from other Oxylabs products don't work here.
- Generate an API key on that instance.
export OXYLABS_WEB_API_KEY=<key>
Start a new session and run /skills — all three skills should be listed.
.mcp.json at the root wires up the MCP server,
so a project that adds this repo gets typed tools alongside the skills. It expects the
binary on PATH:
uv tool install git+https://github.com/oxylabs/web-api-mcpThe key comes from the environment or a .env in the project — never from the config
file. The server also bundles the oxylabs-web-api skill itself (as the
oxylabs://skill/web-api resource), so with the server alone you get tools and method;
install this repo's skills when you also want migrate-to-oxylabs, or no server at all.
skills/oxylabs-web-api/scripts/web_api.py is stdlib-only Python, usable outside an
agent too:
export OXYLABS_WEB_API_KEY=your_api_key_here
python skills/oxylabs-web-api/scripts/web_api.py search "eu ai act deadlines" --max-results 5
python skills/oxylabs-web-api/scripts/web_api.py search "figma pricing" --scrape-top 2
python skills/oxylabs-web-api/scripts/web_api.py scrape "https://example.com/article"- 401 with a valid-looking key — it is almost always a key from a different Oxylabs product. Web API needs its own instance and key.
- 429 with
title: "QUOTA_EXCEEDED"— the plan's quota is spent; retrying won't help. - MCP server fails to connect (
Executable not found: oxylabs-web-api-mcp) — the binary isn't installed; run theuv tool installline above.
For detailed configuration, advanced usage, and code examples in multiple languages, check the official documentation:
MIT
If you have questions or need support, reach out to us at support@oxylabs.io, or through live chat in the Oxylabs Dashboard. For enterprise inquiries, contact your dedicated account manager.