The full upstream README, mirrored here for reference. Install config, tool schemas, adoption signals, and an original overview live on the Planetary Computer listing page.
Earth-observation imagery catalogue from Microsoft's Planetary Computer — search its open satellite and environmental collections (Sentinel, Landsat, NAIP, Daymet, ERA5, biodiversity) by area and date and get item ids, footprints, dates and asset URLs.
Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1683+ live data sources.
planetary_computer_collections(contains?, prefix?, limit?) — the datasets in
the catalogue with licence, extent and date range. Call this first: search
refuses a query that names no collection.planetary_computer_collection(collection_id) — one dataset in full,
including the asset keys (bands) its items carry.planetary_computer_search(collections, bbox?, datetime?, ids?, limit?, max_assets?)
— which scenes cover an area on given dates, with cloud cover and per-band
asset URLs.Keyless for metadata. Asset BYTES are a separate step: most collections require
a short-lived read token from
https://planetarycomputer.microsoft.com/api/sas/v1/token/{collection} (itself
keyless, ~1 hour) appended to the href. The href alone is not a working download
link and reads like a dead one if you try it cold.
Shared client: shared/src/stac.ts (stacCollections / stacCollection /
stacSearch), also used by earth-search, copernicus-dataspace and
meteoswiss. Fix paging or an error message there and all four improve.
POST /search with no collections answers HTTP 422 collection is required — a bare string naming no fix. The shared client converts it into
a message that names planetary_computer_collections.sentinel-2-l2a here is
sentinel-2-c1-l2a on Earth Search. Passing a sibling catalogue's id returns
an empty result, not an error.GET /collections pages; the shared client follows rel="next" and reports
truncated when it stops.Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):
tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/planetary-computer/mcp returns the tools in the table
above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx,
discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the
gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a
single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the
pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and
is the authoritative answer for a given day.
This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a
scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via
ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a
second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without
them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth,
connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.
Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:
Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1683+ data sources. The
only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx
reaches all of them from either one.
No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/planetary_computer_collections. Find one: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs with {"query":"..."}.
This package also runs as a local stdio MCP server — no Pipeworx account, no gateway round-trip:
Or run it directly to confirm it starts:
It speaks MCP over stdin/stdout and answers initialize/tools/list/tools/call
for only this pack's tools — none of the shared meta-tools the gateway
connection above adds. Same source, same tools, no ask_pipeworx routing.
Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:
The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.
MIT