Ordnance Survey - MCP Server

Ordnance Survey - MCP Server

A Python-based MCP server that provides access to the Ordnance Survey APIs.

Overview

This service creates a bridge between MCP clients and the OS APIs, making it easy to query geographic data through a standardised protocol.

The service handles authentication, (basic) rate limiting, and provides a simplified interface to complex OS APIs.

Project Structure

• api_service - Asynchronous HTTP client implementation for the OS APIs

  • Handles authentication, request formatting, and response processing
  • Manages rate limiting and error handling
  • Provides a clean interface to the external API endpoints

• mcp_service - Exposes OS APIs functionality as MCP tools

  • Converts API responses to MCP-compatible formats
  • Implements business logic for feature operations
  • Provides a standardized interface for other services

Features

• Collection management (listing and querying collections)
• Feature search with spatial and attribute filters
• Individual feature retrieval by ID
• Linked identifier operations
• Bulk feature operations

Requirements

• Python 3.11+
• OS API Key (set as environment variable OS_API_KEY)
• You will need to register for an OS Data Hub account to get an API key
• Dependencies: aiohttp, mcp[cli]

Usage

Configure in your MCP host configuration file (e.g Claude Desktop):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "os-ngd-api": {
      "command": "/Users/username/.local/bin/uv",
      "args": ["--directory", "src/", "run", "server.py"],
      "env": {
        "OS_API_KEY": "your_api_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop Integration

This MCP service has only been tested with Claude Desktop.

The aim is to make this service work with various MCP hosts/clients, but this has not been tested yet.

When using with Claude Desktop:

1. Ensure Claude Desktop is configured to access local tools
2. The service will be available as a tool once it's running
3. No additional network configuration is needed

Available Tools

All of this is a work in progress, but the following tools are available:

• hello_world - Test connectivity
• check_api_key - Verify API key configuration
• list_collections - List available feature collections
• get_collection_info - Get details about a specific collection
• get_collection_queryables - Get filterable properties for a collection
• search_features - Search features by various criteria
• get_feature - Retrieve a specific feature by ID
• get_linked_identifiers - Find related identifiers
• get_bulk_features - Retrieve multiple features in a single call
• get_bulk_linked_features - Get linked features in bulk
• get_prompt_templates - Get standard prompt templates for common operations

Using Prompt Templates

This service provides pre-configured prompt templates to help you get started.

To access these templates ask Claude "show me available prompt templates"

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please open an issue or submit a pull request.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

This project does not have the endorsement of Ordnance Survey.