Openaq

What Openaq MCP server does

Openaq MCP server exposes OpenAQ air-quality data through four MCP tools. It covers monitoring stations, pollutant readings, and historical sensor measurements. Supported pollutants can include PM2.5, PM10, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and other parameters returned by the selected station or sensor.

The server is suited to agents that need factual air-quality data tied to a place or coordinate. It does not calculate an air-quality index or interpret measurements against health standards in the provided interface; it returns the data supplied by OpenAQ.

How it works

The Openaq MCP server can be connected to the hosted Pipeworx endpoint or run locally over standard input and output. The hosted pack endpoint is available at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/openaq/mcp. It includes the OpenAQ tools and shared Pipeworx gateway tools. A full gateway connection is also available at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp.

For a local connection, the package can be started with npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-openaq. The local process exposes only this pack's four tools and communicates using MCP over stdin/stdout. The same package can be added to an MCP client's server configuration with the command and args values shown below.

Requests can also be made through the gateway's HTTP tool endpoint. For example, air_quality_near accepts latitude and longitude in a JSON POST request.

Setup and configuration

A hosted MCP configuration can use:

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

The standalone configuration is:

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

The provided setup does not require an OpenAQ API key. The local mode does not require a Pipeworx account or gateway round trip. No required environment variables are documented.

Tools and capabilities

• air_quality_near selects the monitoring station nearest to latitude and longitude and returns its newest pollutant readings, along with other nearby stations.
• find_stations searches by city or place, coordinates and radius, ISO alpha-2 country code, or bounding box. Results include station identifiers, coordinates, measured pollutants, and sensor IDs. At least one location filter is required.
• get_latest returns the newest reading for each pollutant at a station identified by its OpenAQ location ID.
• get_measurements returns the newest readings for one sensor, using hourly or daily aggregation and a requested result limit. Use the sensor ID returned by find_stations.

A historical workflow generally starts with find_stations, then uses a returned sensor ID with get_measurements. For a nearby current reading, air_quality_near is the direct choice.

Limitations and notes

The Openaq MCP server reports timestamps from OpenAQ, so “latest” does not always mean recently collected. Some sensors are archived and may have stopped reporting years ago. Check the timestamps in get_measurements rather than assuming that the newest returned record is current. find_stations and get_latest can help identify stations and sensors that are still reporting.

The hosted pack endpoint lists shared Pipeworx meta-tools in addition to the four OpenAQ tools. The local stdio mode lists only the pack tools. The gateway's exact tool scope can change, so its initialize response is authoritative for a particular connection.