Omdb

What the Omdb MCP server does

The Omdb MCP server exposes OMDb’s movie and television metadata through MCP tools. OMDb is the underlying data source, and its records are derived from IMDb-related data. The package supports title searches and direct lookups for movies, shows, and episodes.

Available operations are:

• search_titles searches by a text query and can accept a year, content type, and result page.
• get_by_title retrieves a record using a title, with optional year, type, and plot-detail controls.
• get_by_imdb_id retrieves a record from an IMDb identifier and can optionally request plot details.

This is a focused metadata connector rather than a general media database management system. It does not provide tools for editing OMDb records.

How it works

The Omdb MCP server can be used in two ways. A hosted connection points an MCP client at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/omdb/mcp. That endpoint exposes the Omdb tools and also includes shared Pipeworx gateway tools. Those shared tools can route questions to other sources through ask_pipeworx, so the hosted endpoint may report more tools than the three Omdb-specific operations.

A local installation runs @pipeworx/mcp-omdb with npx and communicates through standard input and output. The local process exposes only the Omdb tool set and does not add the gateway’s shared meta-tools. Both modes use the same OMDb source and operations.

Setup and configuration

Hosted use requires an OMDb API key. Register through OMDb’s API-key page, then pass the key as the _apiKey query parameter on the gateway URL. The documented free tier allows 1,000 lookups per day per key. The repository does not describe an environment variable for authentication.

A hosted client configuration is:

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

For local stdio use, configure the client to run:

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

The package can also be started directly with npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-omdb to verify that it launches.

Tools and capabilities

The Omdb MCP server supports three lookup patterns: broad title search, title-based retrieval, and IMDb-ID retrieval. Search results can be paged, while title lookups can narrow results by year or type. Plot information is controlled by an optional plot argument on the two retrieval tools.

The hosted gateway also exposes HTTP tool inspection and invocation endpoints, including /v1/tools/search_titles, but those endpoints still require the user’s OMDb key for this pack.

Limitations and notes

The service uses a bring-your-own-key model; Pipeworx does not provide an OMDb key for this pack. Hosted connections include shared gateway tools in addition to the pack tools, while local stdio connections do not. The exact hosted tool scope is reported by the MCP initialize response and can change as the gateway evolves. Results and quota behavior depend on the OMDb API.