Data Nola

What Data Nola does

Data Nola provides MCP access to the City of New Orleans open-data catalogue at data.nola.gov. The integration uses the catalogue's Socrata SODA API and supports both guided lookups and direct queries.

The server is suited to agents that need structured New Orleans data rather than pages of search results. Common examples include retrieving recent crime records, 311 requests, or building permits. For less common subjects, an agent can search the catalogue first and then query the selected resource.

Data Nola is an independent, unofficial integration. It is part of the Pipeworx gateway, which also exposes other data-source packs.

How it works

The hosted MCP endpoint is:

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

An MCP client can connect to that URL directly. A local npm package is also available; the client starts it with npx, and the bridge forwards requests to the same hosted endpoint. The local option still requires network access and has no offline mode.

The pack endpoint lists Data Nola's own tools by default. Pipeworx shared meta-tools can be enabled for the local bridge with PIPEWORX_META_TOOLS=1. The hosted endpoint includes those shared gateway tools alongside the pack tools, including routing through ask_pipeworx.

The full Pipeworx gateway is available at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp if an agent should access all connected data-source packs directly.

Setup and configuration

For an HTTP connection, add the hosted URL to an MCP client configuration. For a local stdio connection, use:

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

Anonymous calls are available without an account and are limited to 50 calls per day. A free Pipeworx account increases the allowance to 200 calls per day. Add PIPEWORX_API_KEY to the local server's environment when using an account; the key is sent as a Bearer token.

The HTTP API can also be called directly. For example, a request to /v1/tools/nola_recent with {"dataset":"crime"} retrieves the recent crime dataset through the gateway.

Tools and capabilities

• nola_recent retrieves newest-first records from the common datasets named 311, crime, and permits. It accepts an optional SoQL where filter.
• nola_datasets searches the New Orleans open-data catalogue by keyword and returns dataset names, descriptions, and Socrata resource IDs.
• nola_query runs a raw SoQL query against any New Orleans resource identified by its eight-character Socrata ID. Supported query components include where, select, group, order, limit, and offset.

A typical workflow is to use nola_datasets to find a resource, then pass its ID to nola_query. For the three common datasets, nola_recent avoids requiring an ID.

Limitations and notes

The service depends on network access to the Pipeworx gateway and the upstream New Orleans open-data service. Anonymous and account-backed usage have different daily call limits. The npm bridge forwards calls rather than hosting a local copy of the data.

When running behind an HTTPS proxy, Node's built-in fetch may require NODE_USE_ENV_PROXY=1 on Node versions that support that setting. The pack endpoint's tool listing can include gateway-wide meta-tools in addition to the three Data Nola tools.