Overheid Nl

What Overheid Nl does

The Overheid Nl MCP server connects AI agents to data.overheid.nl, the Netherlands’ national catalogue for government open data. It exposes catalogue operations through MCP rather than copying the datasets into the server. Results generally include dataset titles, descriptions, identifiers, organizations, and resource metadata. Much of the catalogue content is in Dutch, so Dutch search terms typically produce better matches, although English queries are accepted.

The server is suited to dataset discovery and metadata lookup. It does not serve the underlying files directly through the catalogue API. Instead, a dataset record identifies one or more resources, including a download URL and a format such as CSV or JSON.

How it works

The Overheid Nl MCP server maps its tools to CKAN API methods used by data.overheid.nl. search_datasets uses CKAN package search to find catalogue entries. dataset_details uses the dataset identifier or slug to retrieve the full package record and its resources.

Organization and group discovery use CKAN’s organization-list and group-list operations. Organization names can then be used as a filter in dataset searches, such as an organization:<name> facet. The portal currently returns an empty list for groups, so thematic narrowing should use available search facets instead.

The package can be reached through the Pipeworx gateway or run locally as a standard MCP process. The gateway endpoint also exposes shared Pipeworx meta-tools, while the local process exposes only this package’s four catalogue tools.

Setup and configuration

For a remote connection, configure an MCP client with the streamable HTTP endpoint:

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

A local installation uses the published npm package and communicates over standard input and output:

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

The standalone mode does not require a Pipeworx account. The gateway also provides HTTP tool calls for clients that do not support MCP directly. No environment variables or account credentials are specified for the local package.

Tools and capabilities

• search_datasets: Finds matching Dutch government datasets by query and supports catalogue filtering.
• dataset_details: Returns a complete dataset record by ID or slug, including resource URLs and formats.
• list_organizations: Enumerates ministries, agencies, provinces, and other publishing organizations.
• list_groups: Requests thematic groups from the catalogue; currently, this returns no groups.

Limitations and notes

The Overheid Nl MCP server returns catalogue metadata, not the contents of the linked datasets. An agent or client must fetch a resource URL separately when it needs the actual data. Search results and descriptions are mostly Dutch, making Dutch queries preferable for broad discovery.

When using the gateway endpoint, tools/list includes shared Pipeworx tools in addition to the package tools. The local stdio mode avoids those shared tools and reports only the four tools listed above. The gateway’s initialization response is the authoritative source for the tools available on a particular connection.