MCP Server for Australian Bureau of Statistics data

A maintained, read-only Model Context Protocol server for the public Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Data API.

It lets an MCP client discover ABS datasets, inspect SDMX dimension order and codelists, and run bounded statistical-data queries. No ABS API key is required.

[!IMPORTANT] This is an independent community project. It is not operated by or affiliated with the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Why this server exists

The original community project seansoreilly/mcp-server-abs targets an ABS hostname and route retired in November 2024 and uses a pre-1.0 MCP SDK. This project is a clean-room replacement built against:

• the current https://data.api.abs.gov.au/rest/ API;
• the stable v2 TypeScript MCP SDK;
• the current SDMX structure and data response shapes.

No source code was copied from the older implementation.

Tools

Tool	Purpose
search_dataflows	Search and page through ABS datasets without placing the full catalogue in context.
get_dataflow_structure	Return ordered data-key dimensions, separate time dimensions, attributes, and codelists.
get_codelist	Search and page through valid codes for a dimension.
query_data	Query observations as CSV, labelled CSV, or SDMX-JSON with time, size, and row bounds.

All four tools declare readOnlyHint: true, destructiveHint: false, and openWorldHint: true.

Requirements

• Node.js 22 or 24
• An MCP client that supports local stdio servers

Connect from Codex

Install directly from GitHub:

codex mcp add abs -- npx -y github:RonanLION/mcp-server-abs

Then start a new Codex session and use /mcp to confirm that abs exposes four tools. The equivalent configuration is:

[mcp_servers.abs]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "github:RonanLION/mcp-server-abs"]
startup_timeout_sec = 30
tool_timeout_sec = 30

Codex stores this in ~/.codex/config.toml. See the official Codex MCP documentation for other supported transports and settings.

Connect from another stdio MCP client

Use this command and argument list:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "abs": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "github:RonanLION/mcp-server-abs"]
    }
  }
}

For a local checkout instead:

git clone https://github.com/RonanLION/mcp-server-abs.git
cd mcp-server-abs
npm ci
npm run build

Configure the client to run node /absolute/path/to/mcp-server-abs/dist/index.js.

Recommended workflow

1. Call search_dataflows with a topic such as consumer price.
2. Call get_dataflow_structure with the chosen dataflow ID.
3. Call get_codelist for each dimension whose valid codes you need.
4. Build the case-sensitive SDMX key in the returned dimension order and call query_data.

Example input for the small, stable ALC dataset:

{
  "dataflow_id": "ALC",
  "data_key": "1.2.1.4.A",
  "start_period": "2008",
  "end_period": "2008",
  "format": "csv_with_labels"
}

Dimension values are separated by dots, + selects multiple codes in one dimension, and a blank position is a wildcard. TIME_PERIOD is returned separately and is not part of the data key. The whole key all (or a key with every position blank) selects every series.

Safety and reliability defaults

• Requests are restricted to the fixed HTTPS ABS API origin; redirects are rejected.
• Only HTTP GET is used. The server cannot modify ABS data.
• Requests time out before the ABS gateway's 30-second limit.
• Upstream responses are capped below the ABS 10 MB gateway limit.
• Query output is capped by rows and characters before entering model context.
• A targeted query with no time bound defaults to lastNObservations=1.
• An unbounded all-series query is refused unless it includes an explicit period/observation bound or allow_large_query=true; updated_after alone is not treated as a size bound.
• The known-broken ABS combination of updated_after with plain csv is rejected with guidance to use csv_with_labels or json.
• Metadata is cached in memory for 15 minutes, up to 128 entries. Observation data is not cached.
• Transient 429, 502, 503, and 504 responses receive one bounded retry.

The ABS Data API remains labelled Beta. ABS states that availability is not guaranteed, the service may change, and API data may lag the ABS website.

Configuration

Optional environment variables:

Variable	Default	Allowed range
ABS_MCP_TIMEOUT_MS	25000	1000–29000
ABS_MCP_MAX_RESPONSE_BYTES	8388608	65536–10485760
ABS_MCP_CACHE_TTL_MS	900000	0–86400000
ABS_MCP_CACHE_MAX_ENTRIES	128	1–1000

Invalid values are ignored with a message on stderr. The MCP protocol stream remains exclusively on stdout.

Development

npm ci
npm run check
npm run test:live

npm run check runs formatting, lint, type checking, unit/protocol tests, a production build, and a spawned stdio handshake. npm run test:live exercises dataflow discovery, schema and codelist parsing, and one small read-only data query against the live ABS API.

To inspect tools manually:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector node dist/index.js

License

MIT