How to Use CrawlForge with Smithery: MCP Registry Guide

Smithery is the largest MCP server registry, hosting over 100,000 tools and integrations for AI agents. CrawlForge is listed on Smithery, which means you can discover, install, and manage your web scraping MCP server without touching a config file manually.

This guide walks you through the complete Smithery workflow -- from searching the registry to calling CrawlForge tools in production.

Table of Contents

• What Is Smithery?
• Prerequisites
• Step 1: Install the Smithery CLI
• Step 2: Find CrawlForge on Smithery
• Step 3: Connect to CrawlForge
• Step 4: Browse Available Tools
• Step 5: Call Tools from the CLI
• Step 6: Use Namespaces for Environments
• Credit Cost Reference
• When to Use Smithery vs Direct Installation
• Next Steps

What Is Smithery?

Smithery is a marketplace and registry for MCP servers. Think of it as npm for AI agent tools. Instead of manually configuring each MCP server in your client's settings file, Smithery provides a CLI and web interface to search, install, and manage MCP connections.

Smithery handles OAuth flows, credential storage, token refresh, and session lifecycle automatically. For teams running multiple MCP servers across dev and production environments, this eliminates significant configuration overhead.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+ installed
• A CrawlForge account with an API key (free tier includes 1,000 credits)
• Terminal access (macOS, Linux, or Windows with WSL)

Step 1: Install the Smithery CLI

npm install -g @smithery/cli

Authenticate with your Smithery account:

smithery auth login

This opens your browser for confirmation. Once authenticated, the CLI stores your credentials locally.

Step 2: Find CrawlForge on Smithery

Search the Smithery registry for CrawlForge:

smithery mcp search "crawlforge"

You will see CrawlForge listed with its description, tool count (26 tools), and connection URL. You can also browse the Smithery web catalog to read reviews and documentation before installing.

Step 3: Connect to CrawlForge

Add CrawlForge as a managed MCP connection:

smithery mcp add "https://crawlforge.run.tools" \
  --id crawlforge \
  --metadata '{"apiKey": "cf_live_your_key_here"}'

Verify the connection status:

smithery mcp list

You should see crawlforge with status connected. If it shows auth_required, follow the authorization URL provided in the output.

Step 4: Browse Available Tools

List all 26 CrawlForge tools through Smithery:

# List all tool groups
smithery tool list crawlforge

# Drill into extraction tools
smithery tool list crawlforge extract.

# Inspect a specific tool's input/output schema
smithery tool get crawlforge extract_content

The tool get command shows the full JSON schema for each tool, including required parameters, optional fields, and response format. This is useful for building automation scripts.

Step 5: Call Tools from the CLI

Execute CrawlForge tools directly from your terminal:

// Equivalent to calling from TypeScript:
// await crawlforge.extractContent({ url: 'https://docs.stripe.com/api' })

// From the Smithery CLI:
// smithery tool call crawlforge extract_content '{"url": "https://docs.stripe.com/api"}'

# Extract clean text from a documentation page (1 credit)
smithery tool call crawlforge extract_text \
  '{"url": "https://docs.stripe.com/api"}'

# Search the web for competitive intelligence (5 credits)
smithery tool call crawlforge search_web \
  '{"query": "best web scraping tools 2026", "limit": 10}'

# Extract structured data with CSS selectors (2 credits)
smithery tool call crawlforge scrape_structured \
  '{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com", "selectors": {"titles": ".titleline > a", "scores": ".score"}}'

When piped, Smithery outputs JSONL, which integrates cleanly with jq and other CLI tools:

smithery tool call crawlforge search_web \
  '{"query": "TypeScript MCP server"}' | jq '.results[].title'

Step 6: Use Namespaces for Environments

Smithery namespaces let you isolate CrawlForge connections across dev, staging, and production:

# Create environment-specific namespaces
smithery namespace create myapp-dev
smithery namespace create myapp-prod

# Switch to dev namespace and add CrawlForge with test API key
smithery namespace use myapp-dev
smithery mcp add "https://crawlforge.run.tools" \
  --id crawlforge \
  --metadata '{"apiKey": "cf_test_dev_key"}'

# Switch to prod namespace with production API key
smithery namespace use myapp-prod
smithery mcp add "https://crawlforge.run.tools" \
  --id crawlforge \
  --metadata '{"apiKey": "cf_live_prod_key"}'

This prevents accidental credit consumption on your production account during development.

Credit Cost Reference

The free tier includes 1,000 credits. A typical research workflow -- search (5) + extract 3 pages (6) + summarize (2) -- costs 13 credits total.

When to Use Smithery vs Direct Installation

If you are already using Smithery for other MCP servers (GitHub, Slack, Notion), adding CrawlForge through Smithery keeps everything in one management layer. If CrawlForge is your only MCP server, direct installation is simpler.

Next Steps

• CrawlForge Quick Start -- direct installation guide for Claude Code
• 18 Web Scraping Tools Overview -- what each tool does and when to use it
• View Pricing -- credit packs and subscription plans
• Smithery Documentation -- full Smithery CLI reference

Ready to start scraping? Sign up free and get 1,000 credits -- no credit card required. Then install via Smithery or npm and start extracting web data in under 60 seconds.