Add PacketStream web search to Zed

Give the agent in Zed’s Agent Panel live Google results and readable web pages through PacketStream’s remote MCP server. Zed calls MCP servers context servers and sends your API key in the header you configure. The MCP server is in early beta.

Configure

Create an API key on the MCP page of the dashboard. Open Settings > AI > MCP Servers, select Add Server, then Add Remote Server. Or open your settings file with the zed: open settings file action and add the entry yourself, replacing YOUR_API_KEY with your key:

{
  "context_servers": {
    "packetstream": {
      "url": "https://api.packetstream.io/v1/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

• Keep the Authorization header. Without one, Zed tries to sign you in through OAuth, which the server does not offer.
• Zed’s documentation does not describe environment-variable references in headers, so this entry holds the key itself. Keep it in your user settings, never in a project settings file that you commit.

Check it works

1. Open Settings > AI > MCP Servers. The indicator next to packetstream should be green, with the tooltip “Server is active”.
2. Check the key on its own with the free key check. An active server does not prove the key works, because listing the tools needs no key:

export PACKETSTREAM_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
curl -sS https://api.packetstream.io/v1/account \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $PACKETSTREAM_API_KEY"

A working key returns your balance as JSON. A missing or wrong key returns HTTP 401 with the code unauthorized.

Then ask the agent something that needs current information. Mentioning PacketStream by name can help the model pick its tools.

Tool permissions

Zed asks before it runs a tool, including MCP tools. To let a PacketStream tool run without asking, add a per-tool rule. Zed names MCP tools mcp:<server>:<tool>:

{
  "agent": {
    "tool_permissions": {
      "tools": {
        "mcp:packetstream:packetstream_search": { "default": "allow" },
        "mcp:packetstream:packetstream_fetch": { "default": "allow" }
      }
    }
  }
}

Every successful call is billed, and the server asks agents to use these tools for every web search and page fetch.

Troubleshooting

• The tool result says missing_api_key. The MCP server does not answer a missing key with HTTP 401. The tool call returns an error result that the agent reads and passes on, and the call is not billed. Add the headers entry shown above.
• invalid_api_key. The header does not hold a PacketStream key, often because it still has the YOUR_API_KEY placeholder. It should read Bearer followed by a key that starts with ps_.
• unauthorized. The key was revoked or replaced on the dashboard. Create a new key and update the entry.
• Tool permissions stopped matching after an update. Version 1.3.0 renamed web_search and web_fetch to packetstream_search and packetstream_fetch. A rule for mcp:packetstream:web_search no longer matches. Change it to mcp:packetstream:packetstream_search, and likewise for web_fetch, along with any agent profile that lists the old tools.

See MCP client troubleshooting for the other error results.

Related

• MCP server overview
• Other MCP clients
• MCP server reference
• Cursor
• VS Code