Bigiron

What Bigiron does

Bigiron exposes BigIron’s public auction search and lot pages through MCP. The service covers US agricultural, construction, livestock, and transportation equipment listed on BigIron, a national online timed-auction platform.

Its search tools separate current inventory from completed sales. Active searches return listing information such as title, make, model, year, seller, location, category, current bid, optional Buy-It-Now asking price, and auction close time. Sold searches return confirmed-closed lots with title, equipment details, quantity, seller, location, close date, and bid count.

The integration is an independent, unofficial connection to BigIron and is provided through Pipeworx.

How it works

The hosted MCP endpoint is available at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/bigiron/mcp. A client can connect to that URL directly, or use the local npm bridge, which forwards requests to the same hosted endpoint over the network.

Bigiron reads server-rendered pages from BigIron’s search and lot-detail URLs. Search pages contain encoded lot records, while individual lot pages add the listing description. Search pagination uses 20 lots per page. Sold results are selected with BigIron’s filter=Sold search behavior rather than the login-protected past-auctions area.

The scoped endpoint also exposes shared Pipeworx tools, including routing and discovery tools. The exact set is returned during MCP initialization. The local bridge lists only Bigiron’s tools by default; setting PIPEWORX_META_TOOLS=1 adds the shared tools.

Setup and configuration

Add the hosted endpoint to an MCP client:

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

For a local stdio connection, use the npm package:

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

The npm bridge requires network access and has no offline mode. Anonymous use is capped at 50 calls per day. A free Pipeworx account and PIPEWORX_API_KEY raise the allowance to 200 calls per day. Behind an HTTPS proxy, newer Node releases can use the proxy when NODE_USE_ENV_PROXY=1 is set.

The tools can also be called over HTTP through the Pipeworx tools API, including POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/bigiron_search.

Tools and capabilities

• bigiron_search searches active lots by keyword and returns current auction data.
• bigiron_sold_search searches confirmed-sold lots, newest closes first, for comparable equipment records.
• bigiron_lot_detail retrieves a full lot record from the URL slug returned by either search tool.
• Active lot details may include the current bid and a Buy-It-Now asking price.
• Lot records include equipment identity, seller, location, category, auction status, and timing data.

Limitations and notes

BigIron’s sold-result page does not expose the realized hammer price through the data consumed by this integration. final_price is therefore always null, accompanied by a price note. Bid count is available as a demand indicator, but it is not a sale price.

A Buy-It-Now value applies to an active lot and represents an asking price that can end the auction immediately. It must not be treated as a completed-sale comparable.

The /Past BigIron route requires login, so sold searches use the public search route with filter=Sold. The integration requires no BigIron login or API key; the optional Pipeworx key controls gateway usage limits.