MapleStats MCP
One MCP server for Canadian open data.
MapleStats MCP gives AI agents (Claude, Cursor and any MCP client) typed
access to Canadian open data through one server: Statistics Canada
(tables, Census, public use microdata), the Bank of Canada, CMHC, federal
agencies, and federal, provincial, territorial and municipal open-data
portals, in English and French. Every result carries its source.
MapleStats MCP donne aux agents IA un accès structuré aux données
ouvertes canadiennes par un seul serveur, en français et en anglais.
Project vision: docs/PROJECT_GUIDE.md.
Source coverage: docs/ROADMAP.md.
Website: https://dsanchezp18.github.io/maplestats-mcp/.
The easiest way: ask your agent
- Copy this prompt.
- Paste it into Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or any agent that can run
commands on your computer.
- Restart the agent when it says so, then ask for data.
Connect the MapleStats MCP server to this agent. Follow the setup steps in https://github.com/dsanchezp18/maplestats-mcp
Instructions for the agent doing the setup
The default is the hosted server: nothing to install, no account, no key.
-
Register this remote (HTTP) MCP server under the name maplestats:
- Claude Code:
claude mcp add --transport http --scope user maplestats https://maplestats-mcp.onrender.com/mcp
- Codex CLI:
codex mcp add maplestats --url https://maplestats-mcp.onrender.com/mcp
- Cursor, Claude Desktop and other
mcpServers clients: add the entry
below to the client's config file (Cursor: ~/.cursor/mcp.json; Claude
Desktop: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
on macOS, %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json on Windows),
keeping any servers already there.
- claude.ai and the Claude phone app: on the web, open Settings →
Connectors → Add custom connector, name it
MapleStats, and enter
https://maplestats-mcp.onrender.com/mcp. Then switch it on from the tools
menu in a chat, on the web or in the phone app. Claude asks for approval
before each call by default; every tool is read-only, so set them to
always allow in the connector's tool permissions.
- ChatGPT (web): turn on Settings → Security and login → Developer mode,
then create a developer-mode app for a remote MCP server with the same
address and No Authentication. Every tool is read-only, so ChatGPT
should not ask to confirm calls. OpenAI documents this feature for the web.
- A whole organization: on Claude Team or Enterprise, an Owner adds it once
under Organization settings → Connectors → Add custom connector, and each
member then connects it. On ChatGPT Business, Enterprise or Edu, an admin
turns on Developer mode (Workspace Settings → Permissions & Roles →
Connected Data), creates the app, and publishes it (Workspace settings →
Apps → Drafts → Publish). The hosted server is a shared free instance, so
a large organization should run its own copy.
- VS Code: the same entry under a
servers key, with "type": "http",
in .vscode/mcp.json.
{
"mcpServers": {
"maplestats": {
"url": "https://maplestats-mcp.onrender.com/mcp"
}
}
}
-
Tell the user to restart or reload the client, then check that the
search_tools tool is listed.
-
Only if the client cannot use remote servers, or the user wants the
microdata tabulation tool or everything kept on their own machine, run it
locally instead: claude mcp add --scope user maplestats -- uvx maplestats-mcp
(needs uv), or the equivalent uvx maplestats-mcp entry for other clients (see Install).
The hosted server is a free instance: the first request after a quiet spell can
take up to a minute, each client gets 60 requests a minute, and the microdata
tabulation tool is switched off there. Your agent's tool calls (a search phrase, a table number) reach the server and its host, Render, and the code stores none of them. Check Render's terms and privacy policy; for full privacy, run it locally. What it logs:
FAQ. Other
clients: the Connect
page.
Install locally (optional)
Prefer to run it on your machine? It works over stdio with no account or key.
uvx maplestats-mcp
uv tool install maplestats-mcp
uv tool upgrade maplestats-mcp
For the development version: uv tool install git+https://github.com/dsanchezp18/maplestats-mcp.git.
If you installed the command, use "command": "maplestats-mcp" with no
args in the JSON above. On Windows, make sure the directory where uv
installs tools is on PATH, and restart the client afterwards.
Using it
Tools are found through search rather than listed flat: call
search_tools with a plain-language query (English or French), then
call_tool with the name it returns.
{"name": "search_tools", "arguments": {"query": "consumer price index"}}
{"name": "call_tool", "arguments": {"name": "wds_search_cubes", "arguments": {"query": "consumer price index"}}}
plan_query turns a question into an ordered, multi-source plan, and
reproduce_code writes the R, Python, Stata or Julia script (or an Excel
Power Query) that fetches the same data straight from the source;
reproduce_workbook returns the rows as a formatted Excel workbook. Most tools accept lang: "en"|"fr"
(a documented no-op on single-language sources), and every response has a
provenance block: source, URL, query time, freshness and limits.
docs://catalogue describes every module in both languages.
What it covers
358 tools in 69 modules. Run docs://catalogue for the full, bilingual list.
| Area | Tool prefixes | Covers |
|---|
| Statistics Canada | wds_, sdmx_, sdmx_space_, rdaas_, cimt_, statcan_* | Tables and series, the extra SDMX spaces (energy information, shared data), classifications, Census Profiles 2001–2021 and census tables 2006–2016, public use microdata (codebooks, weighted tables), merchandise trade by commodity (CIMT), open databases (LODE), The Daily, delta files, indicators, surveys, census geography |
| Bank of Canada | boc_ | Valet series, groups, observations |
| CMHC | cmhc_, cmhc_dt_ | Housing Market Information Portal and Excel data tables |
| Federal agencies | eccc_, eccc_coverages_, eccc_datamart_, ised_*, gazette_, tc_recalls_, recalls_, cdc_, cfia_, fcac_, finance_, cihi_, phac_infobase_, hc_*, pmra_, pmprb_, gc_infobase_, cer_, nrcan_*, dfo_iwls_, cgc_, nfd_, ircc_*, cbsa_, pbo_, competition_bureau_, elections_results_, elections_financial_returns_, cra_digital_economy_registry_, earthquakes_, borealis_ | Weather, climate and gridded climate projections, pollutant releases and emissions (NPRI, GHGRP, NAPS), corporations and IP, regulations, recalls, dairy, animal disease, consumer banking, federal and provincial fiscal tables, health, drugs, natural health products, medical devices, adverse reactions, pesticides, spending, energy, mineral production, oceans, grain, forestry, immigration, border wait times, budgets, mergers, elections, earthquakes, university-library data tables |
| Wildland fire | cwfis_, nrcan_nbac_, ab_wildfire_ | NRCan's Canadian Wildland Fire Information System (satellite hotspots, fire danger, weather stations), burned areas, and Alberta Wildfire's live fire status |
| Electricity | electricity_ontario_, electricity_quebec_, oeb_ | IESO (Ontario) demand, generation and prices; Hydro-Québec demand, generation and trade (CC BY-NC 4.0: credit Hydro-Québec, non-commercial use only); Ontario Energy Board datasets |
| Parliament and elected officials | ourcommons_, senate_, represent_ | MPs and their roles, party standings, Cabinet, Senate votes; elected officials and districts for a postal code via Open North's Represent (unofficial) |
| Provincial agencies | aer_, bcgw_, bc_stats_, bc_env_, bc_lobbyists_, drivebc_, ab_economic_, ab_opendata_, isq_, nl_stats_, yukon_stats_, nwt_stats_, elections_provincial_ | Alberta Energy Regulator, BC Geographic Warehouse, BC Stats Excel tables, BC environmental monitoring (air quality, snow, groundwater, streamflow), BC lobbyists registry, DriveBC road events, Alberta Economic Dashboard, Open Alberta files, Institut de la statistique du Québec, the Newfoundland and Labrador, Yukon and Northwest Territories statistics bureaus, provincial general election results (Quebec, Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba) |
| Housing (links only) | crea_ | Links, release timing and terms for CREA's MLS® Home Price Index; no values, because CREA's terms allow private, non-commercial analysis only |
| International | worldbank_ | World Bank World Development Indicators for Canada and peer countries (CC BY 4.0) |
| Open-data portals | ckan_, arcgis_hub_, socrata_ + portal | Federal, provincial, territorial and municipal catalogues (*_list_portals names each one) |
| Other municipal | opendatasoft_vancouver_, nl_opendata_, eps_, ets_, epcor_ | Vancouver, Newfoundland and Labrador, Edmonton police, transit and water quality |
| Transit schedules | transit_ + agency | Static GTFS timetables of the STM (buses), OC Transpo, Calgary Transit, VIA Rail, GO Transit, UP Express 12 BC Transit systems and 19 Quebec networks listed on Données Québec (exo, RTC, STL, STS and others), plus about 100 further agencies from Statistics Canada's 2025 Canadian Public Transit Network Database: stops, routes, scheduled departures, frequency by hour |
Other federal series (CRA, OSFI, ISED insolvency) are ordinary
open.canada.ca datasets, reachable with
ckan_search_datasets(portal="federal", fq="organization:<org>").
Not covered: CAPP's Statistics Handbook, Petrinex and Payments Canada were
not built, because their terms or download hosts do not permit automated
access. CanadaBuys, OpenParliament.ca and the Toronto Transit Commission's
own schedule download were removed for the same reason (the TTC schedule is
still served from Statistics Canada's national transit database), and the
Saskatchewan GeoHub portal was removed. The
roadmap
records each decision.
Development
uv sync
uv run ruff check src tests
uv run ruff format src tests
uv run pyright
uv run pytest
.\scripts\verify.ps1 runs that gate plus every scripts/smoke_test*.py
against the live APIs. The website is generated from the tool registry:
uv run python scripts/build_site.py writes build/site/. See
AGENTS.md
for the contributor guide and how to add a source module.
Hosting
MAPLE_TRANSPORT=http MAPLE_HOST=0.0.0.0 MAPLE_PORT=8000 uv run maplestats-mcp
serves HTTP instead of stdio; docker compose up --build does the same in
Docker. Docker is optional and unnecessary on a personal computer. If the
server is exposed beyond your machine, set MAPLE_AUTH_TOKEN and keep
MAPLE_REQUIRE_AUTH=1. GET /health reports uptime and version.
| Env var | Default | Purpose |
|---|
MAPLE_TRANSPORT | stdio | stdio for local clients, http for hosting |
MAPLE_HOST / MAPLE_PORT | 127.0.0.1 / 8000 | HTTP bind address |
MAPLE_AUTH_TOKEN, MAPLE_REQUIRE_AUTH | unset, 0 | Bearer token required on /mcp; refuse to start without one if 1 |
MAPLE_RATE_LIMIT_REQUESTS / MAPLE_RATE_LIMIT_WINDOW_SECONDS | 120 / 60 | Per-client rate limit |
MAPLE_MAX_CONCURRENT_REQUESTS | 8 | In-flight request cap; the excess waits 5 s, then gets 503 |
MAPLE_SSL_CERTFILE / MAPLE_SSL_KEYFILE | unset | TLS in-process |
MAPLE_TRUST_PROXY_HEADERS | 0 | Rate-limit on X-Forwarded-For; only behind a proxy that sets it |
MAPLE_ALLOWED_ORIGINS | project website, localhost | Browser origins allowed on /mcp (comma-separated, *. and :* wildcards); others get 403, clients without an Origin are allowed |
MAPLE_CACHE_MAX_ENTRIES | 2000 | Response cache size per TTL bucket |
MAPLE_CACHE_MAX_MB | 128 | Estimated memory cap for the response cache, all buckets together |
MAPLE_PARSE_WORKERS / MAPLE_PARSE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS | 4 / 60 | Threads for parsing Excel and CSV files, and the time one parse may take |
MAPLE_TOOL_TIMEOUT_SECONDS | 120 | Longest a tool call may run |
MAPLE_PUMF_TABULATE | 1 | 0 hides statcan_pumf_tabulate (it downloads whole PUMF ZIPs); search, listings and codebooks stay |
MAPLE_PUMF_CACHE_DIR, MAPLE_PUMF_CACHE_MAX_GB | system temp, 5 | Downloaded microdata cache; use a persistent volume when hosted |
MAPLE_IP_HORIZONS_CACHE_DIR, MAPLE_IP_HORIZONS_CACHE_MAX_GB | system temp, 3 | CIPO patent table cache |
MAPLE_DELTA_MAX_SCAN_MB / MAPLE_DELTA_MAX_SCAN_SECONDS | 400 / 75 | How much of a Delta File one statcan_delta_read_table call streams (seconds kept 30 under the tool timeout) |
MAPLE_DELTA_INDEX_DIR | system temp | Saved Delta File resume points (a few MB per day); off keeps them in memory only |
License
MIT
Acknowledgments
MapleStats owes its architecture to
EcuDataMCP, my MCP server for
Ecuador's open data. Its approach to Canadian data owes much to the R
developers who got there first: Jens von Bergmann
(mountainMath) and his co-authors,
Thierry Warin (statcanR), Valentin
Lucet (rgovcan), and others. Thanks
to them, and to everyone who publishes Canadian data in the open.
For other ways to get Canadian data, see the
alternatives.