@cyanheads/met-museum-mcp-server

Search the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection, fetch full artwork records and open-access images via MCP. STDIO or Streamable HTTP.

3 Tools

Tools

Three tools for browsing and fetching Metropolitan Museum of Art collection data:

| Tool | Description | |:---|:---| | met_list_departments | Return all 19 curatorial departments with their numeric IDs and display names | | met_search | Search the collection by keyword with filters for department, date range, medium, geography, public-domain status, and highlight designation | | met_get_object | Fetch full records for one or more object IDs — metadata, provenance, artist info, CC0 image URLs, tags, and Wikidata links |

`met_list_departments`

Return the 19 curatorial departments at The Metropolitan Museum of Art with their numeric IDs and display names.

Live fetch — remains accurate if the Met reorganizes
Use before met_search to discover valid departmentId values

`met_search`

Search the Met collection by keyword and optional filters.

Keyword search across title, artist name, culture, medium, tags, and other text fields
Filter by department ID (use met_list_departments to get valid IDs)
Filter by date range (integer years, negative = BCE)
Filter by medium/classification (e.g., "Paintings", "Sculptures", "Ceramics") — maps to the classification field, not material descriptions
Filter by geographic origin — country, region, or city; multiple values are AND-combined
isPublicDomain=true restricts to CC0 open-access objects (guaranteed usable image URLs)
hasImages=true includes any object with images (includes copyrighted works without reusable URLs)
isHighlight=true restricts to collection highlights designated by the Met
Returns total match count, truncation indicator, and up to limit object IDs (default 20, max 500)
Chain returned IDs to met_get_object in batches of up to 20

`met_get_object`

Fetch full records for one or more Met Museum object IDs.

Accepts 1–20 IDs per call; fetches run in parallel (concurrency-limited)
Partial-success — a single 404 does not fail the whole batch; failed IDs are reported per-ID
Full metadata: title, department, classification, medium, dimensions, date, culture, period, dynasty, accession number, credit line, gallery number
Artist data: display name, biography, nationality, dates, Getty ULAN URL, Wikidata URL
Constituents array for all associated persons (null for anonymous/unattributed works)
Controlled vocabulary tags with Getty AAT and Wikidata URLs
Canonical metmuseum.org URL for human follow-up
CC0 objects return full-resolution and web-display image URLs plus additional image arrays
Object-level Wikidata URL for enrichment via external knowledge graph tools

Features

Built on @cyanheads/mcp-ts-core:

Declarative tool definitions — single file per tool, framework handles registration and validation
Unified error handling — handlers throw, framework catches, classifies, and formats
Pluggable auth: none, jwt, oauth
Swappable storage backends: in-memory, filesystem, Supabase, Cloudflare KV/R2/D1
Structured logging with optional OpenTelemetry tracing
STDIO and Streamable HTTP transports

Metropolitan Museum of Art collection:

500K+ artworks spanning 5,000 years from the Met's public collection API
CC0 open-access data from The Metropolitan Museum of Art — free to use without permission or attribution
Parallel batch fetching with configurable concurrency for met_get_object
Linked data on every object — Getty ULAN and AAT URLs, Wikidata entity URLs for artists, tags, and works

Agent-friendly output:

Provenance on every record — isPublicDomain and hasImages flags distinguish CC0 objects from works with inaccessible images, so agents can reason about what they can actually display
Partial failure reporting — met_get_object returns objects and failed arrays so callers receive successful records alongside structured per-ID error context
Truncation signaling — met_search returns total, returned, and truncated fields so agents know when to refine filters or increase limit

Getting started

Add the following to your MCP client configuration file.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "met-museum": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "bunx",
      "args": ["@cyanheads/met-museum-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with npx (no Bun required):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "met-museum": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@cyanheads/met-museum-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with Docker:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "met-museum": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run", "-i", "--rm",
        "-e", "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=stdio",
        "ghcr.io/cyanheads/met-museum-mcp-server:latest"
      ]
    }
  }
}

For Streamable HTTP, set the transport and start the server:

MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=http MCP_HTTP_PORT=3010 bun run start:http
# Server listens at http://localhost:3010/mcp

Prerequisites

Bun v1.3.0 or higher (or Node.js v24+).
No API key required — the Met Collection API is public and unauthenticated.

Installation

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/cyanheads/met-museum-mcp-server.git

Navigate into the directory:

cd met-museum-mcp-server

Install dependencies:

bun install

Configure environment:

cp .env.example .env
# edit .env as needed (all vars are optional)

Configuration

All configuration is validated at startup via Zod schemas in src/config/server-config.ts.

| Variable | Description | Default | |:---|:---|:---| | MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE | Transport: stdio or http | stdio | | MCP_HTTP_PORT | HTTP server port | 3010 | | MCP_AUTH_MODE | Authentication: none, jwt, or oauth | none | | MCP_LOG_LEVEL | Log level (debug, info, warning, error) | info | | LOGS_DIR | Directory for log files (Node.js only) | <project-root>/logs | | OTEL_ENABLED | Enable OpenTelemetry instrumentation | false | | MET_BASE_URL | Met Collection API base URL (override for local stubs) | https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/public/collection/v1 | | MET_REQUEST_TIMEOUT_MS | Per-request HTTP timeout in milliseconds | 10000 | | MET_BATCH_CONCURRENCY | Max parallel fetches in met_get_object | 5 |

See .env.example for the full list of optional overrides.

Running the server

Local development

Build and run:

# One-time build
bun run rebuild

# Run the built server
bun run start:stdio
# or
bun run start:http

Run checks and tests:

bun run devcheck   # Lint, format, typecheck, security
bun run test       # Vitest test suite
bun run lint:mcp   # Validate MCP definitions against spec

Docker

docker build -t met-museum-mcp-server .
docker run --rm -p 3010:3010 met-museum-mcp-server

The Dockerfile defaults to HTTP transport, stateless session mode, and logs to /var/log/met-museum-mcp-server. OpenTelemetry peer dependencies are installed by default — build with --build-arg OTEL_ENABLED=false to omit them.

Project structure

| Directory | Purpose | |:---|:---| | src/index.ts | createApp() entry point — registers tools and inits the Met service. | | src/config | Server-specific environment variable parsing and validation with Zod. | | src/mcp-server/tools | Tool definitions (*.tool.ts) — met_list_departments, met_search, met_get_object. | | src/services/met | Met Collection API client — HTTP, request timeout, response normalization. | | tests/ | Unit and integration tests mirroring src/. |

Development guide

See CLAUDE.md for development guidelines and architectural rules. The short version:

Handlers throw, framework catches — no try/catch in tool logic
Use ctx.log for request-scoped logging, ctx.state for tenant-scoped storage
Register new tools via the arrays in createApp() in src/index.ts
Wrap external API calls: validate raw → normalize to domain type → return output schema; never fabricate missing fields

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Run checks and tests before submitting:

bun run devcheck
bun run test

Data from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection API (CC0).

License

Apache-2.0 — see LICENSE for details.

MCP Servers