io.github.markswendsen-code/instacart MCP Server

@striderlabs/mcp-instacart

Order groceries via Instacart using AI agents

Part of Strider Labs — action execution for personal AI agents.

Get Started in 2 Minutes

For Claude Desktop Users

1. Add this to your Claude Desktop config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "instacart": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@striderlabs/mcp-instacart"]
    }
  }
}

2. Restart Claude.
3. Tell Claude: "Order my usual groceries for delivery tomorrow morning"

Your agent can now place orders. That's it.

Installation (NPM)

npm install @striderlabs/mcp-instacart

Or with npx directly:

npx @striderlabs/mcp-instacart

Features

• 🛒 Search for products by name or category
• 📦 Browse stores and product availability
• 🏪 Add to cart with quantities and special requests
• 💳 Place orders with delivery time selection
• 📍 Track orders with real-time status
• 🔐 Persistent sessions - stay logged in across restarts
• 🔄 Automatic MFA - handles multi-factor authentication
• 📱 Per-user credentials - encrypted session storage
• ⭐ Saved items - order your favorites faster

Tested & Compatible

Metrics

• Weekly downloads: 271 (Apr 10-17, 2026) — Top grocery connector (+330% growth)
• Status: ✅ Live in production
• Reliability: 85%+ task completion rate
• Discovery: npm, mcpservers.org, ClawHub, PulseMCP, Glama, LobeHub

Available Elsewhere

• npm: npmjs.com/@striderlabs/mcp-instacart
• Claude Plugins: Search "Strider Labs" in Claude
• mcpservers.org: Strider Labs Instacart
• Full Strider Labs: github.com/striderlabsdev/striderlabs

How It Works

For Agents

Your agent can use these capabilities:

// Search for products
products = search_products({
  query: "organic milk",
  location: "San Francisco, CA"
})

// Browse a store's offerings
store_products = get_store_products({
  store_id: "whole_foods_sf",
  category: "Dairy"
})

// Add to cart
add_to_cart({
  product_id: "organic_milk_gallon",
  quantity: 2,
  special_instructions: "Cold stock, please"
})

// Place an order
order = place_order({
  delivery_time: "tomorrow morning",
  delivery_address: "123 Main St, San Francisco, CA",
  special_instructions: "Ring the doorbell twice"
})

// Track delivery
status = track_order({ order_id: order.order_id })

Session Management

• Each user has encrypted, persistent credentials
• Automatic OAuth token refresh
• MFA handling (SMS/email)
• Sessions survive agent restarts

Reliability

• 85%+ task completion rate
• Automated UI change detection (connectors update when Instacart changes)
• Fallback paths for failures
• 24/7 monitoring + alerting

Authentication

The MCP server uses a persistent browser profile (~/.strider/instacart/browser-profile) so your login session survives server restarts automatically.

First-time login

1. Set INSTACART_HEADLESS=false in your MCP server config so the browser window is visible:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "instacart": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@striderlabs/mcp-instacart"],
      "env": { "INSTACART_HEADLESS": "false" }
    }
  }
}

2. Restart Claude / your MCP client.
3. Ask Claude to run instacart_login — a real browser window will open.
4. Log in to Instacart inside that window.
5. Run instacart_status to confirm authentication.
6. Remove INSTACART_HEADLESS (or set it back to true) and restart — the saved profile keeps you logged in.

How login detection works

Authentication is verified by navigating to /account and confirming the page resolves without a redirect to /login or /authentication (positive detection). This is more reliable than checking for the absence of a "Log in" button.

Configuration

Environment Variables

# Show browser window (required for first-time login)
INSTACART_HEADLESS=false   # default: true (headless)

Self-Hosted

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/striderlabsdev/mcp-instacart
cd mcp-instacart

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Start the server
npm start

# Your agent can now connect to localhost:3000

Architecture

How We Connect

This connector uses browser automation (Playwright) to interact with Instacart, because Instacart doesn't have a public API. Here's why that's safe and reliable:

• User-controlled: Your agent only accesses your own Instacart account
• Session-based: We store your login session securely, not your password
• Change-aware: We detect Instacart UI changes and alert immediately
• Fingerprinting: We use realistic browser profiles to avoid bot detection
• Rate-limited: We respect Instacart's infrastructure with appropriate delays

Security

• Credentials stored encrypted in your local .env or secure vault
• Sessions isolated per user
• No data sent to third parties
• MIT Licensed — audit the code yourself

Support

• 📖 Full Strider Labs Docs
• 🐛 Report Issues
• 💬 Discussions
• 🌐 Website
• 📧 Email

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Areas of interest:

• Bug reports and fixes
• Feature requests (new stores, categories, etc.)
• Performance improvements
• Documentation enhancements

See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

License

MIT — Free to use, modify, and distribute. See LICENSE for details.

Built by Strider Labs — Making AI agents actually useful.

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