Statbel Be

What Statbel Be MCP server does

The Statbel Be MCP server connects AI clients to Statistics Belgium's be.STAT/bestat open-data catalog. Its tools focus on discovering saved statistical views and datasets, and on reading the metadata attached to those resources.

A view represents a pre-built table over a dataset. View metadata includes its identifier, name, language, underlying data-source ID, and publication or change dates. Dataset metadata includes the dataset code, descriptions in available languages, category information, supported locales, default locale, and update dates.

This server is suited to agents that need to locate the right Statbel resource before a human or another data-access workflow uses it.

How it works

The Statbel Be MCP server can be used through the Pipeworx gateway or run locally as a standalone stdio process. The gateway exposes a streamable HTTP endpoint at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/statbel-be/mcp. A full gateway endpoint is also available at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp.

The scoped gateway endpoint lists the four Statbel tools along with shared Pipeworx meta-tools. Those shared tools can route questions across the wider Pipeworx catalog. The local package exposes only the Statbel tools and does not provide that gateway routing layer.

A typical lookup starts with list_views or list_datasets. After finding a resource, call get_view or get_dataset with its UUID. A view's returned dataSourceId can be passed to get_dataset to inspect the underlying dataset's multilingual descriptions.

Setup and configuration

For a gateway connection, add the endpoint to an MCP client configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "statbel-be": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/statbel-be/mcp"
    }
  }
}

The Statbel Be MCP server also runs locally without a Pipeworx account or gateway round trip. Configure the package with a stdio command:

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

You can start the package directly with npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-statbel-be. The documentation also provides HTTP access through tool-specific endpoints such as POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/list_views.

Tools and capabilities

• list_views searches saved statistical views by a case-insensitive substring of the view name. Matching can occur across languages, and results include locale, identifiers, and dates.
• get_view retrieves metadata for one view from its UUID, including the related dataset ID.
• list_datasets searches dataset codes and descriptions across supported languages. Results include locale and update metadata.
• get_dataset returns multilingual descriptions and structural metadata for a dataset UUID.

The catalog supports Dutch, French, German, and English metadata where available. Individual views carry one locale, while datasets report their supported and default locales.

Limitations and notes

The Statbel Be MCP server is a metadata and discovery interface in the documented tool set. It does not expose a listed operation for querying or downloading the actual statistical values in a view or dataset.

Gateway and local deployments differ in scope. The gateway endpoint adds shared Pipeworx tools, while the standalone package exposes only the four Statbel tools. The gateway documentation states that its exact tool scope can change and that the initialize response is authoritative. No environment variables are required by the documented setup.