Data Nl

What the Data Nl MCP server does

The Data Nl MCP server connects MCP clients with Netherlands Open Data published at data.overheid.nl/data through its CKAN API. It focuses on dataset discovery, metadata inspection, and retrieval of rows from tabular resources that have CKAN DataStore enabled.

A typical workflow starts with search_datasets, which accepts a keyword and returns matching dataset identifiers or names, titles, organizations, and available resources. The returned resource information includes the IDs needed for later queries. Use dataset when you need the complete metadata for one result, including its resources and their resource IDs.

How it works

The Data Nl MCP server exposes three pack-specific tools over MCP:

• search_datasets finds Netherlands Open Data datasets by keyword.
• dataset retrieves full metadata for a dataset identified by ID or name.
• query_resource reads rows from a tabular CKAN DataStore resource.

query_resource can accept an optional full-text query, limit, and offset. The resource ID must come from a dataset's listed resources. A resource is queryable only when the publisher has enabled the CKAN DataStore; having a resource listed does not guarantee that row queries are available.

The hosted pack endpoint is https://gateway.pipeworx.io/data-nl/mcp. It lists the pack tools together with shared Pipeworx meta-tools. The full gateway is also available at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp. Both hosted URLs use the same gateway and data sources, while the standalone package exposes only the Data Nl tools.

Setup and configuration

For a hosted connection, add the MCP endpoint to a compatible client:

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

The Data Nl MCP server can also run locally over standard input and output using the published package:

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

The local mode does not require a Pipeworx account or gateway round-trip. It responds to MCP initialization, tool listing, and tool calls for this pack. The hosted endpoint can also be called through Pipeworx HTTP tool routes, such as POST /v1/tools/data_nl_search_datasets with a JSON query.

Tools and capabilities

Use search_datasets to locate candidate datasets before attempting a resource query. Use dataset to inspect available formats and identify the relevant resource ID. Then pass that ID to query_resource to retrieve rows, optionally narrowing results with full-text search or controlling pagination with limit and offset.

The hosted gateway also supports ask_pipeworx, which can accept a plain-language question and select a suitable tool. This shared routing capability is not included when running the package locally.

Limitations and notes

Only resources with CKAN DataStore enabled support query_resource; file-based or otherwise non-DataStore resources cannot be queried through that tool. Dataset and resource identifiers should be taken from search or metadata results.

A pack endpoint lists shared Pipeworx tools in addition to the three Data Nl tools, so its tool count is larger than the pack-specific list. The connection's initialize response is the authoritative source for the tools available at connection time. No environment variables are documented as required for local execution.