Add You.com to Jan

Jan is an open-source desktop AI app for Windows, macOS, and Linux that runs local models and cloud models side by side. There are two ways to add You.com, and they cover different ground:

Native web search provider—pick You.com in Settings, and Jan’s built-in web_search and web_fetch tools answer through You.com. Keyless search works out of the box, no account needed.
MCP server—connect the You.com MCP server for the wider tool set: page contents, citation-backed research, and finance research.

Install our docs MCP server

This documentation ships with a Docs MCP Server that gives any MCP-enabled agent a searchDocs tool to search every page here and get back relevant passages with source URLs—no API key required. Point your client at https://you.com/docs/_mcp/server. See the Docs MCP Server guide for setup and examples.

Enable the Web Search Provider

Open the Web Search Settings

Install Jan, then open Settings > Web Search.

Select You.com

Pick You.com in the Search Provider dropdown. Leave the API key field empty and search works immediately through You.com’s free keyless endpoint, subject to a daily request cap.

Add an API Key (Optional)

Paste a You.com API key from you.com/platform to lift the daily cap. With a key, web_fetch also returns extracted markdown instead of raw HTML, which keeps model context clean on pages with heavy markup.

Try It

Pick a tool-capable model—Jan loads web_search and web_fetch only when the selected model’s capabilities include tools. Then:

Search the web for the latest TypeScript release notes and summarize the breaking changes.

Keyless and Keyed Behavior

The provider works with no API key and upgrades when you supply one.

	Keyless	With `YDC_API_KEY`
`web_search`	Free endpoint, daily request cap	Higher rate limits
`web_fetch`	Direct GET of the page—bot-protected sites may return errors	Extracted markdown via the Contents API
Account	None required	you.com/platform

Connect the MCP Server

The web search provider handles search and fetch. For citation-backed research, finance research, and the docs search tool, add the You.com MCP server in Settings > MCP Servers. Jan launches the server as a local process over STDIO, so Node.js must be installed for npx to run.

Add the Server

Click the + button in the MCP Servers panel and enter:

Field	Value
Server Name	`you`
Command	`npx`
Arguments	`-y @youdotcom-oss/mcp`
Environment Variables	`YDC_API_KEY`

Set YDC_API_KEY to a key from you.com/platform. Leave YDC_ALLOWED_TOOLS unset to expose the default tool set, or set it to a comma-separated list such as you-search,you-finance to scope what the model sees.

Approve the Tools

Jan gates every MCP tool behind a per-call approval prompt in the chat—approve the call when the prompt appears. Then ask:

Research the trade-offs between vector databases and keyword search for a RAG pipeline. Cite sources.

The default tool set is you-search, you-contents, you-balance, and you-discover. The optional you-research and you-finance tools are excluded until you request them with YDC_ALLOWED_TOOLS. See the MCP Server reference for the full tool surface.

Troubleshooting

You.com is not in the provider picker

Update to the latest version of Jan. If you still don’t see You.com in the picker, use the MCP server path, which works on any Jan version with MCP support.

Keyless search stopped returning results

You hit the free-tier daily request cap. Add a You.com API key in Settings > Web Search to lift the cap.

web_fetch fails on some sites

Keyless web_fetch does a direct GET of the page, and some sites block automated fetches. Add an API key to switch web_fetch to the Contents API, or fetch a different source.

MCP server won't connect

Confirm Node.js is installed and npx runs from your terminal, and check the Command and Arguments fields for typos. Restart Jan after fixing the entry.

401 with an API key

Check the key for extra spaces or smart quotes in the Environment Variables field, and confirm the key is active at you.com/platform.

Resources

MCP Server Reference

Endpoints, authentication, and the full tool reference.

Web Search for AI Agents

Framework-native search tools for agents, assistants, and RAG.