Smithsonian MCP Server

Public Hosted Server: https://smithsonian.caseyjhand.com/mcp

Prerequisites

A free api.data.gov API key is required. Register at https://api.data.gov/signup — approval is instant. Set it as SMITHSONIAN_API_KEY in your MCP client config or .env file. The server will not start without it.

CC0 media gating: smithsonian_get_media only returns CC0-licensed (open access) images. Use smithsonian_search with filters.cc0_only: true to find objects with downloadable media before calling it.

Tools

Six tools covering the full Smithsonian Open Access workflow — filter vocabulary discovery, search, detail retrieval, CC0 image access, and cross-collection exploration:

smithsonian_search

Full-text search with structured filters across the entire Smithsonian catalog.

• Free-text search over 19.4M objects from 20+ museums
• Filters: museum unit code, object type, decade (1920s), culture, geographic place, online-only, CC0-only
• Returns curated summaries: title, museum, object type, thumbnail URL, CC0 flag, record_id
• Use start + rows for standard pagination (offset-based, max 100 per page)

smithsonian_list_terms

Enumerate the valid term vocabulary for an indexed filter field before applying filters.

• Supported fields: unit_code, culture, place, date, online_media_type
• Returns the field's distinct term values as a page of the full vocabulary — no per-term object counts are available upstream
• Smithsonian uses a controlled vocabulary (terms are often plural, e.g. Paintings not Painting) — grounding filter values here avoids empty results
• Paginate with start + rows (default 50 per page, max 100); large vocabularies like place have 100k+ terms
• object_type is not enumerable upstream — discover object-type values from the object_type field in smithsonian_search results

smithsonian_get_object

Full provenance metadata for a single object.

• Input: record_id from smithsonian_search — do not construct IDs manually
• Returns all available catalog fields: title, dates (all labeled), makers (with roles), materials, dimensions, place associations, culture terms, topic/subject terms, exhibition history, accession identifiers, credit line, rights statement
• Media summary included — call smithsonian_get_media for full image URLs

smithsonian_get_media

CC0-gated image access at multiple resolutions.

• Only CC0-licensed images are returned; throws Forbidden when an object has media but none is CC0
• Each image entry includes thumbnail (~120px), screen-size (~800px), and high-resolution JPEG/TIFF URLs with pixel dimensions
• Use smithsonian_search with filters.cc0_only: true before calling this tool

smithsonian_explore

Category-constrained browse for open-ended collection discovery.

• Four modes: museum (by unit code or full name), culture (e.g. "Aztecs"), period (decade, e.g. "1940s"), medium (object type, e.g. "Paintings")
• Returns total count, representative sample objects, and a museum breakdown showing which institutions hold matching items
• Ideal entry point when the user wants to understand what the Smithsonian has about a topic

smithsonian_find_related

Cross-collection discovery via parallel metadata fan-out.

• Fetches anchor object metadata, then fans out up to 4 parallel searches using culture, maker, topic, and period+type signals
• Deduplicates against the anchor and interleaves results so each fan-out signal contributes
• Cross-museum discovery is the differentiator — an NASM aerospace anchor may surface related objects from NMNH, SAAM, and NMAH
• similarity_signals on each result show which metadata terms connected it to the anchor

Features

Built on @cyanheads/mcp-ts-core:

• Declarative tool definitions — single file per tool, framework handles registration and validation
• Unified error handling — handlers throw, framework catches, classifies, and formats
• Pluggable auth: none, jwt, oauth
• Swappable storage backends: in-memory, filesystem, Supabase, Cloudflare KV/R2/D1
• Structured logging with optional OpenTelemetry tracing
• STDIO and Streamable HTTP transports

Smithsonian-specific:

• Wraps the Smithsonian Open Access API (19.4M objects across 20+ museums) with a free api.data.gov key
• CC0 gating on smithsonian_get_media — only open-access images returned, never restricted content
• Parallel fan-out in smithsonian_find_related with graceful degradation (partial failures don't abort)
• Response normalization across heterogeneous museum metadata schemas

Agent-friendly output:

• CC0 flags on every object summary — agents can gate image download calls without an extra lookup
• Typed error reasons (no_results, invalid_filter, not_found, not_cc0, no_media, invalid_id) with recovery hints for each case
• similarity_signals on related-object results let agents explain why objects were surfaced
• total_count on all search responses enables agents to communicate result scope before paginating

Getting started

Public Hosted Instance

A public instance is available at https://smithsonian.caseyjhand.com/mcp — no installation required. Point any MCP client at it via Streamable HTTP:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "smithsonian-mcp-server": {
      "type": "streamable-http",
      "url": "https://smithsonian.caseyjhand.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Self-Hosted / Local

Requires a free api.data.gov API key — register at https://api.data.gov/signup and set SMITHSONIAN_API_KEY in your config.

Add the following to your MCP client configuration file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "smithsonian-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "bunx",
      "args": ["@cyanheads/smithsonian-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info",
        "SMITHSONIAN_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with npx (no Bun required):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "smithsonian-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@cyanheads/smithsonian-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info",
        "SMITHSONIAN_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with Docker:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "smithsonian-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run", "-i", "--rm",
        "-e", "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=stdio",
        "-e", "SMITHSONIAN_API_KEY=your-api-key",
        "ghcr.io/cyanheads/smithsonian-mcp-server:latest"
      ]
    }
  }
}

For Streamable HTTP, set the transport and start the server:

MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=http MCP_HTTP_PORT=3010 SMITHSONIAN_API_KEY=your-api-key bun run start:http
# Server listens at http://localhost:3010/mcp

Prerequisites

• Bun v1.3.0 or higher (or Node.js v24+).
• A free api.data.gov API key — register at https://api.data.gov/signup. Approval is instant.

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/cyanheads/smithsonian-mcp-server.git

2. Navigate into the directory:

cd smithsonian-mcp-server

3. Install dependencies:

bun install

4. Configure environment:

cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env and set SMITHSONIAN_API_KEY

Configuration

See .env.example for the full list of optional overrides.

Running the server

Local development

• Build and run:

  sh

  # One-time build
  bun run rebuild
  
  # Run the built server
  bun run start:stdio
  # or
  bun run start:http
  

• Run checks and tests:

  sh

  bun run devcheck   # Lint, format, typecheck, security
  bun run test       # Vitest test suite
  bun run lint:mcp   # Validate MCP definitions against spec
  

Docker

docker build -t smithsonian-mcp-server .
docker run --rm -e SMITHSONIAN_API_KEY=your-api-key -p 3010:3010 smithsonian-mcp-server

The Dockerfile defaults to HTTP transport, stateless session mode, and logs to /var/log/smithsonian-mcp-server. OpenTelemetry peer dependencies are installed by default — build with --build-arg OTEL_ENABLED=false to omit them.

Project structure

Development guide

See CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md for development guidelines and architectural rules. The short version:

• Handlers throw, framework catches — no try/catch in tool logic
• Use ctx.log for request-scoped logging, ctx.state for tenant-scoped storage
• Register new tools via the barrel in src/mcp-server/tools/definitions/index.ts
• Wrap external API calls: validate raw → normalize to domain type → return output schema; never fabricate missing fields

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Run checks and tests before submitting:

bun run devcheck
bun run test

License

Apache-2.0 — see LICENSE for details.