meta-data-mcp
<!-- mcp-name: io.github.derekslinz/meta-data-mcp -->A single MCP server that transparently routes user requests to 88 open-data sources.
meta-data-mcp is one MCP server — not many. Under the hood it bundles 88 plugins, each wrapping a different open-data API. The plugins are an implementation detail; from your LLM's perspective there is one server and one place to ask "where can I find data about X?"
You install one server. You get all the data, discoverable through built-in routing tools.
Why "meta"?
Finding open data isn't the hard part — there's an absurd amount of it available. The hard part is finding the right dataset when you need it. meta-data-mcp makes that automatic:
- The LLM calls
opendata_providers_find("FX rates", "court rulings", "earthquakes near Lisbon") and the server routes the query against an internal registry of every bundled plugin. - The LLM then calls the matching tool directly. No setup step in between, no separate servers, no per-provider install rituals.
This project was forked from opendata-mcp and reshaped around the single-server idea once the catalogue passed a few dozen plugins.
Installation
You'll need uv (a Python package manager).
# macOS — install uv via Homebrew so MCP clients can find it
brew install uv
# Linux
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
# Windows (PowerShell)
powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"
Then register the server with every MCP client installed on your machine:
uv run meta-data-mcp setup
The command auto-detects which MCP clients you have installed and adds one meta-data-mcp entry under mcpServers in each. Supported clients:
| Client | Config file |
|---|---|
| Claude Desktop | ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) / %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (Windows) |
| Claude Code | ~/.claude.json |
| Cursor | ~/.cursor/mcp.json |
| Windsurf | ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json |
| Gemini CLI | ~/.gemini/settings.json |
| LM Studio | ~/.cache/lm-studio/mcp.json |
Each existing config is backed up to <file>.bak before writing. Restart the affected client(s) and you'll see one new server with discovery tools available immediately; plugin tools can then be activated on demand.
Inspect what's detected / configured on your machine:
uv run meta-data-mcp clients
Target a single client (or write to every supported client regardless of detection):
uv run meta-data-mcp setup --client claude-code
uv run meta-data-mcp setup --client all
If you want to see the JSON snippet without touching any config file (e.g. to paste into a client we don't support yet):
uv run meta-data-mcp setup --print-json
When META_DATA_MCP_AUTH_TOKEN is set, --print-json also surfaces the SSE-client snippet (with the real token) to stderr so you can wire a remote client.
Hosting meta-data-mcp as a remote SSE server
For deploying behind your own domain with bearer-token authentication, see docs/hosting.md. It covers systemd, Caddy/nginx TLS termination, token rotation, and the threat model.
CLI
There is one server, so the CLI takes no "provider" argument. Every command operates on the one meta-data-mcp server.
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
uv run meta-data-mcp run | Run the server (default SSE; pass --transport stdio for Claude Desktop). |
uv run meta-data-mcp setup | Register the server in detected MCP client configs (or one target via --client). |
uv run meta-data-mcp remove | Unregister the server from detected MCP client configs (or one target via --client). |
uv run meta-data-mcp cleanup | Detect and remove legacy multi-server entries (--apply to commit). |
uv run meta-data-mcp inspect | Launch mcp-inspector against the server. |
uv run meta-data-mcp list | Informational: list the internal plugins bundled in this server. |
uv run meta-data-mcp info | Informational: show server overview. Pass --plugin <name> for plugin-level details. |
uv run meta-data-mcp version | Print the package version. |
The list command exists for transparency about what's bundled — plugins are not separately installable, runnable, or addressable. They are loaded automatically when the server starts.
Server tools (what the LLM calls)
Once meta-data-mcp is running, the LLM has access to two layers of tools — and you don't need to mention either to the user:
- Meta tools — the 13 server-level tools below. They make routing transparent: the LLM uses them to find, activate, and (if needed) create the right plugin without you telling it which tool to call.
- Plugin tools — ~330 tools coming from the 88 bundled plugins. In the default discovery-only mode they are activated per provider at runtime (or preloaded via
META_DATA_MCP_PRELOAD). The LLM picks one after consulting the meta tools.
Meta tools
| Tool | Purpose |
|---|---|
opendata_providers_find | Free-text search over the plugin registry. Returns ranked matches. When nothing matches the response carries a no_match: true flag and a next_step hint pointing at opendata_plugins_draft + opendata_plugins_create. |
opendata_explain_choice | Show the scoring breakdown for a search (useful for debugging routing decisions). |
opendata_domains_list | Enumerate the controlled domain vocabulary (health, legal, finance, earth-science, …). |
opendata_regions_list | Enumerate the controlled region vocabulary (us, eu, uk, global, …). |
opendata_providers_describe | Full metadata for one plugin by id — title, description, domains, regions, keywords, homepage, required env vars. |
opendata_providers_list | Paginated dump of the whole registry. |
opendata_providers_activate | Activate one provider so its tools become callable in this session. |
opendata_providers_deactivate | Remove an activated provider's tools from the current session catalog. |
opendata_providers_list_active | List currently active providers and the tool names each contributes. |
opendata_health_snapshot | Return per-provider health scores used by discovery health badges and routing context. |
opendata_plugins_draft | Build a validated plugin YAML spec from structured inputs. Takes id, base_url, tool definitions (name, endpoint, params), and registry metadata. Validates id/tool-name casing, path-placeholder/param consistency, and parameter types, then emits a YAML string ready to feed into opendata_plugins_create. Use this so the LLM never has to hand-author YAML. |
opendata_plugins_create | Autonomously create a new plugin. Takes a YAML spec (typically produced by opendata_plugins_draft), runs the generator, imports the new module, registers it in the live registry, and hot-loads its tools onto the running server. Use this when opendata_providers_find returns no match. |
opendata_tool_call | Proxy-call an activated plugin tool by name for environments that cannot directly invoke dynamically added tools. |
The autonomous discovery flow
The reason this server is called "meta" is that it routes data requests on the user's behalf — including by creating the route when one doesn't exist yet. The full flow:
- User asks for data, e.g. "show me the most recent published CVEs."
- LLM calls
opendata_providers_findwith the query (cve,vulnerability, …). - If the registry has a match: the LLM activates the matching provider (
opendata_providers_activate, oractivate_topin find) and then calls the plugin tool. - If the registry has no match: the response includes
no_match: trueand anext_stepfield that explains the autonomous creation path. The LLM:- Tells the user it's about to add coverage for this data source.
- Web-searches for an open API that exposes the requested data (e.g. the NVD or CIRCL CVE API).
- Calls
opendata_plugins_draftwith the API's id, base URL, and structured tool definitions. The server validates the inputs (id casing, path-placeholder consistency, parameter types) and returns a YAML string. - Passes that YAML to
opendata_plugins_create. The server materializes the plugin module + tests, imports the module, registers aProviderEntryin the in-memory dynamic registry, and merges the new tools into the running server's tool list. - Calls the newly-available tool to answer the user's original question.
- User gets their answer — and the plugin remains available for the rest of the session.
The materialized plugin lives on disk (meta_data_mcp/providers/{id}.py + tests/providers/test_{id}.py); contributors can clean it up, add it to meta_data_mcp/registry.py as a static entry, and open a PR so it becomes part of every shipped install.
Plugin tools
Every bundled plugin contributes its own tools under the one server. Their names are unique kebab-case identifiers, often using a provider-specific prefix (e.g. usgs-eq-feed-significant-week, frankfurter-latest, wikipedia-fetch-summary). The LLM discovers them through opendata_providers_find/opendata_providers_describe, activates the provider when needed, and can inspect session state with opendata_providers_list_active.
Presentation layer (MCP Apps)
v2.0 adds a visual layer on top of every tool result. Hosts that support the MCP Apps extension (Claude Desktop, MCP Inspector, others) render bound tool results inline as interactive panels in a sandboxed iframe instead of as JSON text. Hosts that don't speak MCP Apps fall back to the same JSON they always got — the binding is purely additive.
Each MCP-Apps-aware tool declares its panel via _meta.ui.resourceUri on the tool description. The host fetches the ui:// resource (HTML + bundled JS, single payload, no external requests besides explicitly-whitelisted CDNs) and dispatches bidirectional postMessage events between the iframe and itself.
Shape primitives — ui://meta-data-mcp/shape/<name>/v1
Three reusable bundles cover the common payload contracts. Any tool whose response matches one of these shapes binds to the corresponding primitive automatically and gets a rich renderer for free.
| Shape | Renders | Payload contract |
|---|---|---|
timeseries/v1 | Line chart + auto-computed profile (min/max/mean/stddev/gap-count) via Plotly. | {points: [{date, value, series?}], axes: {x, y}, annotations?} |
geofeatures/v1 | Leaflet map + marker cluster (with density layer for high-cardinality outputs). | `{features: GeoJSON |
records/v1 | Faceted, sortable, paginated HTML table + per-column auto-profile (type inference, top-k, null rate, range). | {rows: [...], schema?, default_facets?} |
Custom apps — ui://meta-data-mcp/app/<name>/v1
Some data shapes don't fit a generic primitive. v2.0 ships dedicated apps for them:
| App | Drives | Visualization |
|---|---|---|
discovery/v1 | opendata_providers_find, opendata_domains_list, opendata_regions_list, opendata_providers_activate, etc. | Faceted plugin browser with live health badges. |
vulnerability/v1 | nvd-*, osv-*, epss-*, cisa-kev. | CVSS radar + severity heatmap + exploitation-probability gauge. |
entity-graph/v1 | crossref-works-by-author, openalex-search-works, wikidata-search-entities, opensanctions-search. | Force-directed graph (D3) with co-authorship overlay. |
trade-flows/v1 | comtrade-trade-data. | Reporter → commodity → partner Sankey + commodity treemap. |
news-tone/v1 | gdelt-article-search, gdelt-volume-timeline. | Volume + tone timeline with country-pair chord diagram. |
network-topology/v1 | ripestat-asn-neighbours and friends. | Force-directed ASN peering/upstream/downstream graph. |
molecular/v1 | pubchem-compound, pdb-entry. | WebGL 3D structure viewer (3Dmol.js, cartoon for proteins, stick+sphere for ligands). |
museum/v1 | met-search, met-search-by-artist, met-get-object. | Lazy-loaded CSS-grid image gallery + provenance detail panel. |
Building new apps
Adding a UI binding to a generated provider is now a one-line spec change:
tools:
- name: my-tool
description: ...
endpoint: /foo
response_shape: records # ← binds to the shape primitive
See tools/specs/README.md for the full reference. Bundle-size budgets are enforced in CI (warn ≥ 100 KB, error ≥ 1 MB); the v2.0 bundles range from 14 KB (timeseries primitive) to 34 KB (vulnerability app), all comfortably inside the budget.
Bundled plugins (88)
This is what's inside the one server. You don't install these individually — they all come along.
Government / Civic
| Plugin | Source | Description |
|---|---|---|
au_data_gov | Australian Government Open Data | CKAN catalog at data.gov.au |
ca_open_gov | Canada Open Data | CKAN catalog at open.canada.ca |
ch_opendata_swiss | opendata.swiss | Swiss federal open-data catalog (CKAN) |
de_govdata | GovData Germany | Germany's federal open-data catalog (CKAN) |
fr_data_gouv | data.gouv.fr | French government open data platform |
nl_tweedekamer | Tweede Kamer | Dutch Parliament open data |
sg_data_gov | Singapore Open Data | data.gov.sg datasets and collections |
uk_gov | data.gov.uk | UK government CKAN catalog |
us_cary | Town of Cary Open Data | Town of Cary, NC open data via Socrata — public safety, transportation, utilities, parks |
us_data_gov | Data.gov | US federal government open datasets |
us_fayetteville | City of Fayetteville Open Data | City of Fayetteville, NC open data via Socrata — public safety, infrastructure, community services |
us_raleigh | City of Raleigh Open Data | City of Raleigh open data via Socrata — public safety, infrastructure, parks, planning |
Statistics / Economics
| Plugin | Source | Description |
|---|---|---|
eu_eurostat | Eurostat | European Union statistics |
global_imf | International Monetary Fund | IMF SDMX 2.1 statistical data |
global_faostat | FAOSTAT | UN food and agriculture statistics — production, prices, trade, land use, emissions |
global_dbnomics | DBnomics | Global economic data aggregator (IMF, World Bank, etc.) |
global_oecd | OECD | OECD economic & social statistics (SDMX) |
global_world_bank | World Bank | Development indicators by country |
nl_cbs | Statistics Netherlands (CBS) | Dutch statistical datasets (OData v2/v3) |
uk_ons | UK ONS | UK Office for National Statistics |
Finance / Markets
| Plugin | Source | Description |
|---|---|---|
eu_ecb | European Central Bank | ECB data portal (SDMX) — FX, monetary, banking |
global_coingecko | CoinGecko | Cryptocurrency market data |
global_frankfurter | Frankfurter | ECB reference FX rates (key-less) |
us_sec_edgar | SEC EDGAR | Public company filings, XBRL financials |
us_treasury_fiscal | US Treasury Fiscal Data | Federal debt, daily Treasury statement, FX rates |
Health & Life Sciences
| Plugin | Source | Description |
|---|---|---|
global_chembl | ChEMBL | EMBL-EBI molecule and bioactivity database |
global_disease_sh | disease.sh | COVID-19, influenza, vaccine aggregator |
global_pubchem | NCBI PubChem | Chemical compounds and substances |
global_rcsb_pdb | RCSB PDB | 3D protein and macromolecular structures |
global_who_gho | WHO GHO | WHO Global Health Observatory (OData) |
us_cdc_socrata | US CDC | CDC open data via Socrata |
us_clinicaltrials | ClinicalTrials.gov | NIH/NLM clinical trials registry v2 |
us_fda_openfda | openFDA | FDA adverse events, recalls, labels |
us_healthdata_gov | HealthData.gov | HHS open health data via Socrata — outcomes, insurance, demographics, public health |
Earth Science / Weather / Environment
| Plugin | Source | Description |
|---|---|---|
eu_copernicus | Copernicus (EU) | European Earth observation and climate datasets |
global_open_meteo | Open-Meteo | Weather forecast + historical + air quality |
global_openaq | OpenAQ | Global air-quality measurements from reference monitors and sensors |
us_ncdeq_gis | NC DEQ Environmental GIS | NC Dept. of Environmental Quality ArcGIS Hub — permits, air/water quality, hazardous waste |
us_noaa_ncei | NOAA NCEI | Climate data access services (key-less) |
us_noaa_tides | NOAA Tides & Currents | Water levels, tides, currents |
us_usgs_earthquake | USGS Earthquakes | Real-time and historical seismic events |
Biodiversity / Space / Physics
| Plugin | Source | Description |
|---|---|---|
cern_opendata | CERN Open Data | Particle physics datasets and software |
global_gbif | GBIF | Global biodiversity occurrence records |
global_inaturalist | iNaturalist | Citizen-science species observations |
global_opensky | OpenSky Network | Live ADS-B flight tracking |
global_solarsystem | Le Systeme Solaire API | Open solar-system object and body metadata |
us_nasa | NASA | APOD, Near Earth Objects, Mars rover photos |
Geo / Mapping / Knowledge
| Plugin | Source | Description |
|---|---|---|
global_mcp_registry | MCP Server Registry | Official MCP server registry — search and list published MCP servers |
global_osm_nominatim | OSM Nominatim | Geocoding / reverse-geocoding (1 req/sec) |
global_overpass | OSM Overpass | Query OpenStreetMap with Overpass QL |
global_rest_countries | REST Countries | Country reference data — borders, capitals, currencies, languages, populations |
global_wikidata | Wikidata | Structured knowledge graph + SPARQL |
global_wikipedia | Wikipedia | Article summaries, related, page views |
us_arcgis_item | ArcGIS REST API | Fetch public ArcGIS item metadata by ID — layers, maps, services, files |
us_census_geocoder | US Census Geocoder | Address ⇄ coordinates ⇄ geographies |
us_nc_onemap | NC OneMap | NC's authoritative GIS clearinghouse via ArcGIS REST — statewide geographic layers |
Agriculture / Trade
| Plugin | Source | Description |
|---|---|---|
global_un_comtrade | UN Comtrade | International merchandise and services trade statistics |
Security / Vulnerability
| Plugin | Source | Description |
|---|---|---|
eu_euvd | ENISA EUVD | Latest, exploited, critical, and filtered EU vulnerability search |
global_circl_cve | CIRCL CVE Search | Recent CVEs, CVE details, and vendor/product browsing |
global_crtsh | crt.sh | Certificate transparency search for domains and certificates |
global_epss | FIRST.org EPSS | Exploit prediction scores and percentile ranks for CVEs |
global_nvd_cve | NVD CVE Database | NIST CVE records, filters, and change history |
global_opensanctions | OpenSanctions | Sanctions, PEP, debarment, and related risk datasets |
global_osv_dev | OSV.dev | Open source vulnerability advisories across ecosystems |
global_pwned_passwords | Pwned Passwords | Anonymous breached-password SHA-1 prefix lookups |
global_ssllabs | SSL Labs | Public TLS configuration and endpoint analysis |
us_cisa_kev | CISA KEV | Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog with remediation deadlines |
Transit / Aviation
| Plugin | Source | Description |
|---|---|---|
ch_sbb | Swiss Federal Railways | Swiss train disruptions and service data |
de_db | Deutsche Bahn | German railway open data |
nl_ndov | NDOV Loket | Dutch public transport data |
us_faa_nasstatus | FAA NAS Status | US airspace status, delays, ground stops (XML) |
us_noaa_awc | NOAA Aviation Weather | METAR, TAF, and station weather data |
Scholarly Literature
| Plugin | Source | Description |
|---|---|---|
global_arxiv | arXiv | Preprint metadata (Atom XML) |
global_crossref | Crossref | DOI metadata, citations, journals |
global_doaj | DOAJ | Open-access journal and article search |
global_europepmc | Europe PMC | Biomedical literature + fulltext XML |
global_openalex | OpenAlex | Open scholarly metadata |
Culture / Books
| Plugin | Source | Description |
|---|---|---|
global_met_museum | Met Museum | Met Museum Open Access (CC0) |
global_open_library | Open Library | Books, authors, works (Internet Archive) |
global_unesco_heritage | UNESCO World Heritage Sites | Natural, cultural & mixed World Heritage Sites |
News / Media
| Plugin | Source | Description |
|---|---|---|
global_gdelt | GDELT 2.0 | Global news, event, and tone monitoring across 100+ languages |
global_hackernews | Hacker News API | Public stories, comments, jobs, and user profiles |
Networking / Internet
| Plugin | Source | Description |
|---|---|---|
global_bgpview | BGPView | BGP routing data — ASN info, prefixes, peers (key-less) |
global_ripe_stat | RIPE NCC RIPEstat | Production-grade BGP data (key-less) |
Legal
| Plugin | Source | Description |
|---|---|---|
nl_rechtspraak | Dutch Rechtspraak | Dutch court rulings and case law (ECLI) |
uk_legislation | UK legislation.gov.uk | UK Acts, statutory instruments (XML/Atom) |
us_courtlistener | CourtListener | US court opinions, dockets, judges (Free Law Project) |
us_federal_register | US Federal Register | Daily rules, notices, executive orders |
Optional environment variables
A few bundled plugins accept optional API keys for higher rate limits. Set these in your shell or in the Claude Desktop server config's env block:
| Variable | Plugin | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
COURTLISTENER_API_TOKEN | us_courtlistener | Anonymous access works at low volumes |
NVD_API_KEY | global_nvd_cve | Raises NVD API rate limits |
META_DATA_MCP_CONTACT | all | Your email, used in User-Agent for polite-pool APIs (Crossref, OpenAlex, OSM, SEC EDGAR). Defaults to meta-data-mcp@example.org. |
OPENAQ_API_KEY | global_openaq | Enables authenticated OpenAQ API access |
OPENSANCTIONS_API_KEY | global_opensanctions | Enables authenticated OpenSanctions API access |
UN_COMTRADE_API_KEY | global_un_comtrade | Enables higher-tier UN Comtrade API access |
Server runtime flags
| Variable | Purpose |
|---|---|
META_DATA_MCP_PRELOAD | Comma-separated plugin ids to activate at startup, or * for all. Default unset = discovery-only (~13 meta tools). |
META_DATA_MCP_AUTH_TOKEN | When set on the SSE transport, requires Authorization: Bearer <token> on /sse and /messages. |
META_DATA_MCP_OAUTH_ISSUER | Enable OAuth 2.0 Authorization Code + PKCE. Set to the server's public base URL (e.g. http://localhost:8000). Mounts /.well-known/oauth-authorization-server, /register, /authorize, /token, /revoke, and a consent page at /oauth/consent. Coexists with META_DATA_MCP_AUTH_TOKEN — both auth methods remain valid simultaneously. |
META_DATA_MCP_OAUTH_MAX_CLIENTS | Maximum number of registered OAuth clients kept in memory. Default 1000. Must be a positive integer; invalid values fall back to the default. |
META_DATA_MCP_OAUTH_TOKEN_TTL | OAuth access-token lifetime in seconds. Default 3600 (1 hour). Must be a positive integer; invalid values fall back to the default. |
META_DATA_MCP_PROVENANCE | Truthy (1, true, yes, on) enables a meta-data-mcp/provenance entry on every tool-call result's first content block's _meta, carrying sha256 and timestamp (ISO 8601 UTC, ms precision). The digest covers the canonical (tool, arguments, content) envelope — content blocks dumped via model_dump(mode="json", by_alias=True, exclude_none=True) with _meta stripped, JSON-serialized with sort_keys=True, separators=(",",":"), ensure_ascii=True. Binding tool name + arguments into the hash means audit logs can distinguish "tool A returned X" from "tool B returned X". Default off — opt in when you need tamper-evidence. See meta_data_mcp/provenance.py module docstring for the verbatim receiver recipe. |
Transports
run defaults to SSE (HTTP, port 8000) so you can connect from the MCP Inspector or remote clients. For Claude Desktop (which the setup command targets), the spawned process uses stdio:
uv run meta-data-mcp run # SSE on 127.0.0.1:8000
uv run meta-data-mcp run --transport stdio # stdio
uv run meta-data-mcp run --host 0.0.0.0 --port 3001 # SSE bound to all interfaces
Roadmap
Shipped
- Hierarchical discovery (v2.0):
opendata_providers_findwith ranked scoring replaces the originally-planned browse/list tools. - Agent-driven generation (v2.1):
opendata_plugins_draft+opendata_plugins_createlet the model close coverage gaps autonomously. Hardened in v2.1.1 with input allowlists, path containment, and a post-generation AST validator (14 RCE/path-traversal/bypass paths closed). - Self-hosted SSE deployment (v2.1): bearer-auth-protected, systemd-managed, reverse-proxied.
- Multi-language SDK (v2.2): Python embedded client (
meta_data_mcp.sdk) and TypeScript/Node client (@meta-data-mcp/sdk) for discovery over MCP SSE. - OAuth 2.0 (v2.3): Authorization Code + PKCE + Dynamic Client Registration. Works with Claude.ai (StreamableHTTP) and MCP Inspector.
/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server,/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource, and/.well-known/openid-configurationall served. - MCP registry provider (v2.3.4):
mcp_registry_searchandmcp_registry_list— discover other MCP servers from within meta-data-mcp. Listed on the official MCP registry and Smithery.
Still ahead
- Expand provider coverage beyond the current 88.
Credits
- Originally conceived by grll as
opendata-mcp. - Forked and reshaped around the single-server "meta-mcp" model.
- Built on Anthropic's open-source MCP spec.
License
MIT — see LICENSE.