MCP Server

smithsonian-mcp-server

v0.1.18 pre-1.0

Search, explore, and retrieve CC0 media from 19.4 million Smithsonian Open Access objects across 20+ museums via MCP. STDIO or Streamable HTTP.

public 6 tools protocol 2025-11-25 github cyanheads/smithsonian-mcp-server ↗

smithsonian.caseyjhand.com/mcp

claude mcp add --transport http smithsonian-mcp-server https://smithsonian.caseyjhand.com/mcp

codex mcp add smithsonian-mcp-server --url https://smithsonian.caseyjhand.com/mcp

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "smithsonian-mcp-server": {
      "url": "https://smithsonian.caseyjhand.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

gemini mcp add --transport http smithsonian-mcp-server https://smithsonian.caseyjhand.com/mcp

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "smithsonian-mcp-server": {
      "command": "bunx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-remote",
        "https://smithsonian.caseyjhand.com/mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

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

curl -X POST https://smithsonian.caseyjhand.com/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "MCP-Protocol-Version: 2025-11-25" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2025-11-25","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"curl","version":"1.0.0"}}}'

Built on@cyanheads/mcp-ts-core v0.10.15

Tools

smithsonian_search

open-world

Search across 19.4 million Smithsonian objects by text query and optional filters. Filters narrow by museum unit, object type, decade, culture, geographic place, and online/CC0 availability. Returns curated summaries (title, date, museum, thumbnail URL, CC0 flag) with the total match count. The record_id in each result is the identifier for smithsonian_get_object, smithsonian_find_related, and smithsonian_get_media.

read

invocation

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "smithsonian_search",
    "arguments": {
      "query": "<query>"
    }
  }
}

schema

{
  "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "query": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "Free-text search. Use specific terms for precision (\"Tlingit totem pole\") or broad terms for browsing (\"quilt\")."
    },
    "filters": {
      "description": "Optional structured filters to narrow the search.",
      "type": "object",
      "properties": {
        "unit_code": {
          "description": "Museum unit code (e.g. \"NASM\", \"SAAM\", \"NMAH\", \"NMAAHC\", \"NMAI\", \"NPG\", \"CHNDM\", \"SIL\"); the National Museum of Natural History is indexed under discipline sub-units like \"NMNHBIRDS\" and \"NMNHPALEO\", not a bare \"NMNH\". The full set is enumerable via smithsonian_list_terms (field \"unit_code\").",
          "type": "string"
        },
        "object_type": {
          "description": "Object type term from Smithsonian's controlled vocabulary — commonly plural (e.g. \"Paintings\", \"Photographs\", \"Aircraft\"). Singular everyday forms like \"Painting\" usually return nothing. This field is not enumerable via smithsonian_list_terms; harvest valid values from the object_type field in smithsonian_search results.",
          "type": "string"
        },
        "date_decade": {
          "description": "Decade filter (e.g. \"1920s\", \"1960s\"). Must match the \"NNNNs\" format exactly. Indexed decades are enumerable via smithsonian_list_terms (field \"date\").",
          "type": "string",
          "pattern": "^\\d{4}s$"
        },
        "culture": {
          "description": "Culture term from the controlled vocabulary — often plural or qualified (e.g. \"Aztecs\", \"Plains Indian\"). The vocabulary is enumerable via smithsonian_list_terms (field \"culture\").",
          "type": "string"
        },
        "place": {
          "description": "Geographic place (e.g. \"United States of America\"). The full set is enumerable via smithsonian_list_terms (field \"place\").",
          "type": "string"
        },
        "online_only": {
          "description": "When true, restrict to records carrying an indexed online_media_type value. That vocabulary covers digitized surrogates — finding aids, catalog cards, scanned books, full text, electronic resources — alongside images, 3D models, and video, and the surrogate types often have no deliverable media attached, so a match can still report has_media: false. Read has_media on each result to decide whether smithsonian_get_media will return anything.",
          "type": "boolean"
        },
        "cc0_only": {
          "description": "When true, restrict to CC0 open-access objects. Useful before calling smithsonian_get_media.",
          "type": "boolean"
        }
      },
      "additionalProperties": false
    },
    "rows": {
      "default": 20,
      "description": "Page size (default 20, max 100).",
      "type": "integer",
      "minimum": 1,
      "maximum": 100
    },
    "start": {
      "default": 0,
      "description": "Pagination offset — 0-indexed. Use with rows for paging through large result sets.",
      "type": "integer",
      "minimum": 0,
      "maximum": 9007199254740991
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "query",
    "rows",
    "start"
  ],
  "additionalProperties": false
}

view source ↗

smithsonian_list_terms

open-world

Enumerate the valid term vocabulary for an indexed Smithsonian filter field (unit_code, culture, place, date, online_media_type). Terms are a controlled vocabulary — often plural or qualified (e.g. "Paintings", not "Painting") — so guessed filter values tend to return nothing. Returns a page of the field's distinct term values; large vocabularies (place has 100k+ terms) page via start and rows.

read

invocation

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "smithsonian_list_terms",
    "arguments": {
      "field": "<field>"
    }
  }
}

schema

{
  "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "field": {
      "type": "string",
      "enum": [
        "unit_code",
        "culture",
        "place",
        "date",
        "online_media_type"
      ],
      "description": "Indexed field to enumerate. Choices: unit_code (museum codes like \"NASM\"), culture (e.g. \"Aztecs\"), place (geographic terms), date (decade/era values like \"1920s\"), online_media_type (media formats like \"Images\", \"3D Models\")."
    },
    "start": {
      "default": 0,
      "description": "Pagination offset (0-indexed). Use with rows to page through large vocabularies.",
      "type": "integer",
      "minimum": 0,
      "maximum": 9007199254740991
    },
    "rows": {
      "default": 50,
      "description": "Number of terms to return per page (default 50, max 100).",
      "type": "integer",
      "minimum": 1,
      "maximum": 100
    },
    "contains": {
      "description": "Case-insensitive substring filter on the term vocabulary — resolve a filter value (e.g. \"greek\") to its exact controlled-vocabulary term(s).",
      "type": "string"
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "field",
    "start",
    "rows"
  ],
  "additionalProperties": false
}

view source ↗

smithsonian_get_object

open-world

Fetch a normalized catalog metadata projection for a Smithsonian object by its record_id (from smithsonian_search results). Returns the exposed catalog fields — title, dates, description, makers, materials, dimensions, places, cultures, topics, exhibitions, credit line, identifiers, rights, and a media summary. The media summary is a count; full image URLs come from smithsonian_get_media.

read

invocation

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "smithsonian_get_object",
    "arguments": {
      "id": "<id>"
    }
  }
}

schema

{
  "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "id": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "Object record_id from smithsonian_search results (e.g. \"nasm_A19670093000\")."
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "id"
  ],
  "additionalProperties": false
}

view source ↗

smithsonian_get_media

open-world

Return every CC0 (open-access) image for a Smithsonian object at multiple resolutions; an object whose media is entirely non-CC0 yields no downloadable images. Each image entry includes thumbnail (~120px), screen-size (~800px), and high-resolution JPEG/TIFF URLs with pixel dimensions. The cc0_only filter on smithsonian_search surfaces objects that have downloadable CC0 images.

read

invocation

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "smithsonian_get_media",
    "arguments": {
      "id": "<id>"
    }
  }
}

schema

{
  "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "id": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "record_id of the object (e.g. \"nasm_A19670093000\") from smithsonian_search or smithsonian_get_object."
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "id"
  ],
  "additionalProperties": false
}

view source ↗

smithsonian_explore

open-world

Browse Smithsonian collections by category to answer "what does the Smithsonian have about X?" questions. Returns an overview: total count, a page of matching objects, and a breakdown of which museums those page objects come from. Page through the full category with start and rows. Four browse modes — museum, culture, period, medium. Use as the entry point for open-ended research.

read

invocation

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "smithsonian_explore",
    "arguments": {
      "mode": "<mode>",
      "value": "<value>"
    }
  }
}

schema

{
  "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "mode": {
      "type": "string",
      "enum": [
        "museum",
        "culture",
        "period",
        "medium"
      ],
      "description": "Browse dimension: \"museum\" (by unit code), \"culture\" (by culture term), \"period\" (by decade like \"1940s\"), \"medium\" (by object type like \"Paintings\")."
    },
    "value": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "Category value appropriate to the mode. museum: a unit code like \"NASM\", \"SAAM\", or \"NMNHBIRDS\", matched literally and case-sensitively — not a museum name. culture: term, often plural or qualified (\"Aztecs\", \"Plains Indian\"). period: decade (\"1940s\", \"1860s\"). medium: object type, usually plural (\"Paintings\", \"Aircraft\"). Smithsonian uses a controlled vocabulary — for culture, place, or unit_code, call smithsonian_list_terms to find exact terms."
    },
    "rows": {
      "default": 10,
      "description": "Number of sample objects to return (default 10, max 50).",
      "type": "integer",
      "minimum": 1,
      "maximum": 50
    },
    "start": {
      "default": 0,
      "description": "Pagination offset — 0-indexed. Page contiguously with start = page × rows.",
      "type": "integer",
      "minimum": 0,
      "maximum": 9007199254740991
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "mode",
    "value",
    "rows",
    "start"
  ],
  "additionalProperties": false
}

view source ↗

smithsonian_find_related

open-world

Discover objects across Smithsonian collections related to a given anchor object, matched on shared metadata signals — culture, period, object type, maker names, and topic terms. Each related object is tagged with the signals that connected it to the anchor. Matches surface across museums — an NASM aerospace anchor can pull related objects from NMNHPALEO, SAAM, and NMAH.

read

invocation

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "smithsonian_find_related",
    "arguments": {
      "id": "<id>"
    }
  }
}

schema

{
  "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "id": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "record_id of the anchor object (e.g. \"nasm_A19670093000\") from smithsonian_search or smithsonian_get_object."
    },
    "limit": {
      "default": 10,
      "description": "Maximum number of related objects to return (default 10, max 20).",
      "type": "integer",
      "minimum": 1,
      "maximum": 20
    },
    "start": {
      "default": 0,
      "description": "Pagination offset — 0-indexed. Page contiguously with start = page × limit; each signal is reachable to a depth of 5000 objects, beyond which truncated stays true but deeper pages aren't retrievable.",
      "type": "integer",
      "minimum": 0,
      "maximum": 9007199254740991
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "id",
    "limit",
    "start"
  ],
  "additionalProperties": false
}

view source ↗