nes-lter-mcp

An MCP server for the NES-LTER API. It exposes efficient discovery, batch CTD queries, cruise datasets, schema discovery, and provenance-rich results.

Example prompt to an MCP client:

show me the profile for oxygen for station L8 for winter 2025

The server can satisfy this with query_ctd(station="L8", variable="oxygen", season="winter", year=2025).

Install / run

uv sync
uv run nes-lter-mcp

For MCP clients, configure the command as:

uv --directory /path/to/nes-lter-mcp run nes-lter-mcp

Tools

• list_stations() — station catalog with coordinates, depth, and provenance.
• find_cruises(year, season?, cruise_type?) — CTD cruises by date/season/type.
• list_casts(cruise_name, station?, max_distance_km?, offset?, limit?) — bounded cast discovery.
• get_cast_profile(cruise_name, cast_number, variable, include_points?, depth_min?, depth_max?) — one profile.
• query_ctd(...) — batch CTD query; compact summaries by default, with bounded concurrency.
• get_station_profile(...) — compatibility wrapper around query_ctd.
• list_dataset_rows(dataset, cruise_name, ...) — underway, bottles, bottle summaries, nutrients, HPLC, chlorophyll, events, and event history.
• get_cruise_track(cruise_name) — track URL and provenance.
• get_dataset_schema(dataset, cruise_name) — available columns or API schema.
• resolve_variable(name, cruise_name?, dataset?) — friendly-name resolution.

The nes-lter://stations and nes-lter://variable-aliases MCP resources provide stable reference context.

Common variables include oxygen, temperature, salinity, density, fluorescence, and par. Raw CTD column names like sbox0mm_kg are also accepted.

By default, winter 2025 is interpreted meteorologically as Dec 2024 through Feb 2025.

Configuration

Set NES_LTER_API_BASE_URL to override the API base URL. Defaults to https://nes-lter-api.whoi.edu.

NES_LTER_CACHE_TTL controls the in-memory cache duration in seconds (default 900), and NES_LTER_MAX_CONCURRENCY controls concurrent API requests (default 8).

For efficient interaction, use query_ctd(..., include_points=false) first, then request full points for selected casts. All data responses include source_url and retrieved_at.