Data La

What Data La does

Data La exposes Los Angeles open data from data.lacity.org to MCP clients. Its three pack-specific tools cover common recent-record lookups, catalogue discovery, and detailed querying through the Socrata SODA API.

The la_recent shortcut accepts friendly dataset names such as crime, arrests, businesses, permits, and 311. It returns the newest rows from the selected common dataset and can apply a SoQL where filter. This is intended for questions about recent Los Angeles crime, LAPD arrests, building permits, MyLA311 requests, and active businesses.

la_datasets searches the Los Angeles open-data catalogue by keyword. Results include dataset names, descriptions, and Socrata resource IDs. Those IDs can then be passed to la_query, which runs a query against any Los Angeles open-data resource.

How it works

The hosted MCP connection is available at:

https://gateway.pipeworx.io/data-la/mcp

The endpoint uses the streamable HTTP MCP transport. A separate full-gateway endpoint is also available at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp; the Data La endpoint lists the pack's tools directly while still exposing shared Pipeworx meta-tools. ask_pipeworx can route plain-language questions across the wider gateway from either endpoint.

For local MCP clients, @pipeworx/mcp-data-la starts a stdio process and forwards requests to the same hosted gateway. The bridge requires network access and has no offline mode. Direct HTTP calls are also supported through the gateway's tool API, such as POST /v1/tools/la_recent.

Setup and configuration

Add the hosted endpoint to an MCP client with an entry like:

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

The local npm option uses npx:

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

Anonymous use is capped at 50 calls per day. A free Pipeworx account raises the limit to 200 calls per day. Add PIPEWORX_API_KEY to the local server's environment to authenticate with a key. Set PIPEWORX_META_TOOLS=1 if the local bridge should also list shared gateway tools such as ask_pipeworx. When using an HTTPS proxy, newer Node releases can honor the proxy environment through NODE_USE_ENV_PROXY=1.

Tools and capabilities

• la_recent: Retrieve newest records from a common Los Angeles dataset by friendly name, with an optional SoQL where filter.
• la_datasets: Find catalogue datasets by keyword and return their resource IDs.
• la_query: Run SoQL using where, select, group, order, limit, and offset against a specified eight-character Socrata ID.
• Shared gateway meta-tools: The hosted pack endpoint also lists gateway-wide tools, including ask_pipeworx, discover_tools, search_within, remember, and recall.

Limitations and notes

The 311 shortcut points to the latest yearly partition. Use la_datasets when records from an earlier year are needed. For datasets outside the common shortcuts, first locate the resource ID with la_datasets, then query it with la_query.

The integration is independent and unofficial; it is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or published by the upstream Los Angeles open-data provider. The local package forwards calls to Pipeworx, so network connectivity is required. The project is licensed under MIT.