Metmuseum MCP

What mikechao/metmuseum-mcp MCP server does

The mikechao/metmuseum-mcp MCP server gives an AI client access to collection data from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Its tools cover department discovery, object search, object retrieval, and an interactive browsing experience. Search results provide a total count and a paginated set of object IDs; detailed metadata requires a follow-up request with a specific ID.

The server is suited to collection lookup and art research workflows. An agent can identify relevant works from a text query, narrow the search by supported criteria, then request the full open-access record for selected objects. Returned records can include artist information, department, credit line, medium, dimensions, tags, image URLs, and an image when one is available and requested.

How it works

The server uses the Met Collection API and exposes its operations through MCP. list-departments returns the department IDs and names that can be used when narrowing searches. search-museum-objects accepts a query and supports title matching, image availability, department, highlights, tags, on-view status, artist or culture, medium, geographic location, and date-range filters. Results use one-based pages, with a default page size of 24 and a maximum of 100 IDs per page.

get-museum-object takes an object ID and defaults to including an image when an Open Access image is available. Setting returnImage controls whether the image is included in the tool result; image content is returned as a base64-encoded JPEG.

The open-met-explorer tool launches the ui://met/explorer.html MCP App in clients that support Apps. It can receive an initial query, image preference, title-only mode, and department filter. Use the app for broad exploration, then use object retrieval for records that need closer inspection.

Setup and configuration

Node.js 18 or newer is listed as a prerequisite. The documented stdio launch command is:

npx -y metmuseum-mcp

Stdio is the default transport and is intended for desktop MCP clients such as Claude Desktop. The server also supports Streamable HTTP. Start it with npx -y metmuseum-mcp --http; by default, the endpoint is available at http://localhost:3001/mcp.

MET_API_TIMEOUT_MS sets the outbound Met API timeout and defaults to 10,000 milliseconds. MET_API_DEBUG enables debug messages on stderr for schema validation failures and defaults to false. For HTTP mode, PORT defaults to 3001, HOST defaults to 127.0.0.1, and ALLOWED_HOSTS defaults to localhost,127.0.0.1.

Tools and capabilities

The mikechao/metmuseum-mcp MCP server exposes these tools:

• List valid Met Museum departments and their IDs.
• Search collection objects with query, title, image, department, and other documented filters.
• Paginate search results and receive the total number of matches.
• Retrieve detailed object data by numeric object ID.
• Include an available Open Access artwork image in retrieval results.
• Open the Met Explorer MCP App with optional initial filters.

Limitations and notes

Search returns object IDs rather than complete object records, so detailed workflows generally require a second tool call. Images are conditional: an object must have an available Open Access image, and image inclusion must be enabled for retrieval. The interactive Met Explorer experience depends on MCP App support in the client. HTTP mode binds locally by default; exposing it to another service requires configuring the host, port, allowlist, or an external tunnel.