Planetary Computer MCP Server

@pipeworx/planetary-computer

Earth-observation imagery catalogue from Microsoft's Planetary Computer — search its open satellite and environmental collections (Sentinel, Landsat, NAIP, Daymet, ERA5, biodiversity) by area and date and get item ids, footprints, dates and asset URLs.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1867+ live data sources. This is an independent, unofficial integration — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or published by the upstream provider.

Tools

• planetary_computer_collections(contains?, prefix?, limit?) — the datasets in the catalogue with licence, extent and date range. Call this first: search refuses a query that names no collection.
• planetary_computer_collection(collection_id) — one dataset in full, including the asset keys (bands) its items carry.
• planetary_computer_search(collections, bbox?, datetime?, ids?, limit?, max_assets?) — which scenes cover an area on given dates, with cloud cover and per-band asset URLs.

Auth

Keyless for metadata. Asset BYTES are a separate step: most collections require a short-lived read token from https://planetarycomputer.microsoft.com/api/sas/v1/token/{collection} (itself keyless, ~1 hour) appended to the href. The href alone is not a working download link and reads like a dead one if you try it cold.

Data sources

• Planetarycomputer — STAC API 1.0.

Shared client: shared/src/stac.ts (stacCollections / stacCollection / stacSearch), also used by earth-search, copernicus-dataspace and meteoswiss. Fix paging or an error message there and all four improve.

Traps

• POST /search with no collections answers HTTP 422 collection is required — a bare string naming no fix. The shared client converts it into a message that names planetary_computer_collections.
• Collection ids are per-catalogue. sentinel-2-l2a here is sentinel-2-c1-l2a on Earth Search. Passing a sibling catalogue's id returns an empty result, not an error.
• GET /collections pages; the shared client follows rel="next" and reports truncated when it stops.

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "planetary-computer": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/planetary-computer/mcp"
    }
  }
}

What this endpoint actually serves

tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/planetary-computer/mcp returns the tools in the table above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx, discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and is the authoritative answer for a given day.

This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth, connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.

Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipeworx": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1867+ data sources. The only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx reaches all of them from either one.

No MCP client? Call it over HTTP

curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/planetary_computer_collections \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"contains":"sentinel","limit":5}'

No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/planetary_computer_collections. Find one: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs with {"query":"..."}.

Run it from npm

@pipeworx/mcp-planetary-computer is a local stdio bridge to the Pipeworx gateway: your MCP client starts it with npx, and it forwards every call to the same https://gateway.pipeworx.io/planetary-computer/mcp endpoint shown above. It needs network access; there is no offline mode.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "planetary-computer": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-planetary-computer"]
    }
  }
}

Without a key it calls anonymously, capped at 50 calls a day. A free account raises that to 200 a day: get a key at https://pipeworx.io/signup and add "env": { "PIPEWORX_API_KEY": "<your key>" } to the server entry. The key is sent as a Bearer token, the same way a hosted connection sends it, so calls are metered and billed exactly as they are there.

It lists only this pack's tools by default. Set PIPEWORX_META_TOOLS=1 to also list ask_pipeworx and the other gateway-wide tools.

Behind an HTTPS proxy: Node's built-in fetch does not read HTTPS_PROXY by default. Newer Node releases honour it when NODE_USE_ENV_PROXY=1 is set; check your Node version's documentation.

Using with ask_pipeworx

Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:

ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about Planetary Computer data" })

The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.

More

• Docs and guides
• pipeworx.io

License

MIT