Ref MCP

Ref is a documentation search server for coding agents. Your agent searches public docs for APIs, services and libraries, plus your team's private docs, then reads only the parts of a page that matter. It writes code against the current docs without filling its context window with pages it doesn't need. What you can do with it - Search public documentation for libraries, frameworks and APIs while you code - Search your private docs: GitHub repos you connect and PDF or Markdown files you upload - Read any documentation URL as Markdown, trimmed to the sections that match your searches - Use Ref's search_docs and my_docs prompts (type /Ref in agents that support MCP prompts) Its two tools - ref_search_documentation searches your indexed public and private documentation - ref_read_url reads a URL from the results, or any web page, as Markdown How it connects Ref hosts the server at https://api.ref.tools/mcp. Connect without an API key and your agent starts an OAuth sign-in to Ref. Or pass the key from ref.tools/keys in an x-ref-api-key header, or as ?apiKey= on the address. Ref's own docs have setup steps for ChatGPT, Claude and more. The older local version runs with npx ref-tools-mcp@latest and a REF_API_KEY environment variable. Good to know - It only reads documentation; it doesn't change your code, repos or accounts. - Each search or read uses one Ref credit. New accounts get 200 free credits that don't expire, and paid plans add monthly credits. - Within a session, Ref doesn't repeat results it has already shown, and when it reads a long page it keeps the parts most relevant to your searches. - Private repos are indexed through the Ref GitHub App and synced every five minutes. - On a Ref team, you may need ?scope= with your team ID on the address; ref.tools/install shows it. - With OpenAI clients the same tools are named search and fetch, so Ref can serve as a deep research source.

• “Implement CORS in my Firebase functions, check docs with ref”

  1. ref_search_documentation
  2. ref_read_url
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• “Find the Figma REST API endpoint for posting a comment”

  1. ref_search_documentation
  2. ref_read_url
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