# Apify MCP connector

The Apify connector lets Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and the Elaichi Agent find and run actors, read datasets and run logs, and manage tasks and schedules in Apify, with each person signed in as themselves and every call logged.

Source: https://elaichi.ai/connectors/apify/

## Facts

| | |
| --- | --- |
| Application | Apify |
| Category | Application Development |
| AI tools | 27 |
| Authentication | Connects over OAuth |
| Bring your own OAuth app | No |
| Native MCP | Yes. Apify builds and runs this MCP server. Elaichi adds sign-in, access controls and an audit log on top |
| Support for its tools | support@apify.com |
| MCP endpoint | https://api.elaichi.ai/mcp |
| Works with | Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, any MCP client, and the Elaichi Agent |
| Tools advertised by name | No. Connected tools are never listed one by one, however few there are. The endpoint advertises `search_tools` and `execute_tool` instead |

## What you can ask once Apify is connected

- Which actor runs failed last night and what did the logs say?
- Show me the first 50 items from the Google Maps scraper dataset.
- Create a weekly schedule for the competitor pricing task.

## Connect Apify in Elaichi

This happens once for the organization, before any client is involved.

1. Open Connections, choose Add connection, and pick Apify.
2. Optionally set Share with, then press Connect.
3. Approve it in Apify. Apify's own window opens. Whoever approves it decides what this connection can reach.

Credentials are vaulted and nobody, including the AI, reads them back. The connection becomes a toolbox immediately, so you can curate which Apify tools are exposed, rename them, or freeze arguments before anyone points a client at it.

## Apify MCP connector for Claude

Endpoint: https://api.elaichi.ai/mcp

1. Open Customize, then Connectors.
2. Press Add.
3. Name it, paste the MCP server URL, then Continue.
4. Sign in and approve.

On Team and Enterprise, an Owner adds it once. Everyone else turns it on for themselves.

## Apify MCP connector for ChatGPT

Endpoint: https://api.elaichi.ai/mcp

1. Open Plugins, then press the + button.
2. Name it and paste the endpoint into Server URL.
3. Leave Authentication on OAuth, then tick the risk acknowledgement.
4. Press Create, then sign in and approve.

Works on the web today. The plugin directory lives at chatgpt.com/plugins.

## Apify MCP connector for Cursor

Endpoint: https://api.elaichi.ai/mcp

1. Open `~/.cursor/mcp.json`.
2. Add the endpoint under `mcpServers`.
3. Reload Cursor, then sign in and approve.

Set up per machine, so repeat it on each computer you work from.

## Connect Apify to any MCP client

Endpoint: https://api.elaichi.ai/mcp

1. Add the endpoint as a remote MCP server.
2. Sign in and approve.

The Elaichi Agent already has these tools, with nothing to set up.

## What the consent screen decides

Only Read is granted by default, which is not enough to call a Apify tool. Over MCP there is no trusted place to confirm a write in the moment, so the consent screen is the standing approval rather than a formality. Grant Read and Run tools. Think hard before granting Delete, which reaches into connected apps and cannot be undone.

## What teams do with Apify through Elaichi

### Pull competitor prices before the Monday meeting

Marketing. Start the pricing actor you already use, wait for the run to finish, and read the dataset items back as a plain table. No one has to open Apify or export a file.

### Build a prospect list from a scraped directory

Sales. Ask for the latest items from the directory scraper's dataset and have them summarized by region or industry. The list is ready to hand over before the first call of the day.

### Check what came back from last night's crawl

Data. Look at the dataset schema, sample the first hundred items, and spot a broken field before anyone builds a report on it.

### Find the right actor for a new source

Research. Search the Apify Store for an actor that covers a new website, read its details and the relevant docs, and try a small run to see what the output looks like.

### Set up a task and put it on a schedule

Engineering. Create an actor task with the inputs your team settled on, publish it, and add a weekly schedule so the crawl runs without anyone remembering to start it.

### Catch a runaway run before it burns credits

Operations. Ask which runs have been going longer than usual, read the log of the one that looks stuck, and abort it from the same conversation.

## Elaichi vs Zapier MCP vs Composio for Apify

All three can connect Apify to an AI assistant, and all three have admin controls. They differ in where access lives and how you pay.

| What to check | Elaichi | Zapier MCP | Composio |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Where the AI connects | One address for the whole organization. Endpoint: https://api.elaichi.ai/mcp | A server per member, created at sign-in. | An MCP endpoint per team, or an SDK. |
| Control over Apify tools | Allow or restrict single Apify tools, per role or user. | App and action restrictions on the account. | Role permissions, down to the action. |
| Record of calls | One audit entry per Apify call. | A History tab of tool calls. | A log of every tool call. |
| Single sign-on | SAML or OIDC, plus SCIM, on Gold. | SAML on Enterprise. | SAML and OIDC on Enterprise. |
| Price | $15 per user per month. | 2 tasks per successful call. | Billed per tool call. |

Sources: Zapier MCP [docs](https://docs.zapier.com/mcp/get-started/quickstart), [security](https://docs.zapier.com/mcp/manage/security), [usage](https://docs.zapier.com/mcp/features/usage); Composio [docs](https://docs.composio.dev/docs/composio-connect), [gateway](https://composio.dev/mcp-gateway), [enterprise](https://composio.dev/enterprise), [pricing](https://composio.dev/pricing). Checked September 2026.

Longer take: [Zapier MCP alternative](/blog/zapier-mcp-alternative/) and [when you don't need an MCP gateway](/blog/when-you-dont-need-an-mcp-gateway/).

## Frequently asked questions

### How do I connect Apify to Claude?

Connect Apify in Elaichi first: you sign in with your Apify account over OAuth and approve access, with no OAuth application to register and no client ID or secret to generate. Then in Claude open Customize, then Connectors, then Add, and paste https://api.elaichi.ai/mcp. Claude asks you to sign in to Elaichi, and from then on Apify is available in your conversations.

### Does Apify work with ChatGPT and Cursor as well as Claude?

Yes. Once Apify is connected in Elaichi, the same endpoint, https://api.elaichi.ai/mcp, works in Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, any other MCP client and the Elaichi Agent. You connect Apify once and every client picks it up.

### What can an AI agent actually do with my Apify data?

With Apify connected, an agent can search the Apify Store for actors, read their details and docs, start an actor run and follow its log, and read the results from datasets and key-value stores. It can also create, update, publish or unpublish actor tasks, add schedules, and abort a run that has gone wrong. Short, concrete asks such as "show me the last five runs of the pricing scraper" work better than long instructions.

### Does connecting Apify give the AI access to my whole Apify account?

An agent working through Apify only sees the actors, runs, datasets and stores that the person who signed in can already see in Apify. Elaichi can narrow that further by restricting actions for a team or role, but it never widens what Apify itself allows.

### Can my team share one Apify connection?

Yes. One person connects Apify and shares the connection with a team in Elaichi, and nobody else ever handles an Apify token. Each teammate still signs in to Elaichi as themselves, so the audit log names the person who started or aborted every run.

### Can I stop an agent from changing things in Apify?

Yes. Restrictions in Elaichi apply per action, so you can let an agent read Apify datasets and run logs while blocking it from starting runs, aborting them, or editing and publishing tasks. A restricted action is never advertised to the AI client, so no prompt can reach it.

### What happens to an Apify connection when someone leaves?

Offboarding a person in Elaichi ends their access to Apify through every client at once. If they shared an Apify connection, it keeps working for everyone else on the team. Disconnecting Apify once in Elaichi removes it from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and every other connected client.

### Does the Apify MCP connector work with Gemini, Codex, Claude Code or other MCP clients?

Yes. Apify is reached over the same MCP endpoint every client uses, so anything that speaks MCP can call it — Gemini, Codex, Claude Code, Windsurf, Cline, Zed and OpenCode among them — alongside Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and the Elaichi Agent. The tools on offer and the access behind them are identical whichever client asks. Only the setup screen differs.

### Is Elaichi an alternative to Zapier MCP for Apify?

Yes. Both let Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor use Apify. Zapier MCP fits a team that already automates in Zapier, since each person signs in and acts as themselves in that account. Elaichi fits when IT wants one address for the whole company, per-tool rules by role, and a record of every Apify call.

### How is Elaichi different from Composio for Apify?

Composio gives AI agents tools and sign-in handling across 1,000+ apps, for developers building agents or people using an assistant, billed per tool call. Elaichi gives a company's own people governed access to Apify: one address, restrictions per role or user, and $15 per user per month. Both have role permissions and a log of every call.

## All 27 Apify tools

Every tool below is callable through https://api.elaichi.ai/mcp once Apify is connected, subject to the toolbox it is in and the restrictions on the caller.

- **Search actors** (Search). Search for Actors in Apify Store
- **Fetch actor details** (Action). Retrieve detailed information about a specific Actor, including its input and output schema, README (summary when available, full otherwise), and pricing
- **Call actor** (Action). Run an Actor and wait up to waitSecs (0-45, default 30) for it to finish. Pass run limits (memory, timeout, maxItems, maxTotalChargeUsd) in callOptions, not in the Actor input. Returns the run status and storage IDs, not the results themselves
- **Search Apify docs** (Search). Search the Apify documentation for relevant pages
- **Fetch Apify docs** (Action). Fetch the full content of an Apify documentation page by its URL
- **Get actor run** (Get). Get detailed information about a specific Actor run
- **Get actor run list** (Get). Get a list of an Actor's runs, filterable by status
- **Get actor run log** (Get). Retrieve the logs for a specific Actor run
- **Abort actor run** (Run). Abort a running Actor run
- **Get dataset** (Get). Get metadata about a specific dataset
- **Get dataset items** (Get). Retrieve items from a dataset with support for filtering and pagination
- **Get dataset schema** (Get). Generate a JSON schema from dataset items
- **Get key value store** (Get). Get metadata about a specific key-value store
- **Get key value store keys** (Get). List the keys within a specific key-value store
- **Get key value store record** (Get). Get the value associated with a specific key in a key-value store
- **Get dataset list** (Get). List all available datasets for the user
- **Get key value store list** (Get). List all available key-value stores for the user
- **Get actor task** (Get). Get a saved Actor task, its publication state, and its public display configuration
- **Create actor task** (Create). Create a saved Actor task: a named, reusable Actor configuration
- **Update actor task** (Update). Update a task's input, run options, or the display configuration of its landing page
- **Publish actor task** (Publish). Publish a task on its public landing page
- **Unpublish actor task** (Action). Unpublish a task from its public landing page
- **Create schedule** (Create). Create a schedule that runs Actors and tasks on a cron cadence
- **Get schedule** (Get). Get a schedule's cron expression, time zone, state, and next run
- **Update schedule** (Update). Change a schedule's cron expression, time zone, state, or actions
- **Delete schedule** (Delete). Delete a schedule permanently
- **Report problem** (Action). Report a problem with the MCP server to Apify