ontoloom

MCP tools for building and exploring OWL 2 ontologies with AI agents.

ontoloom is an MCP server for working with OWL 2 EL ontologies. Each ontology is a single SQLite file. Axioms are typed and validated at the API boundary, and identity is a content hash so duplicates can't slip in.

Example

A coding agent sketches a tiny solar-system ontology. Create the database, declare a prefix, and add the planet hierarchy:

>>> create_ontology(path="solar.ontology.db")

Created ontology at `solar.ontology.db`.


>>> set_prefix(
...     path="solar.ontology.db",
...     name="sol",
...     iri="http://example.org/solar-system#",
... )

Set prefix `sol:` -> `http://example.org/solar-system#`


>>> add_axioms(path="solar.ontology.db", axioms=[...])

Added 6 axioms, skipped 0 axioms.
[bb5496d24bd1] SubClassOf(sol:Star, sol:CelestialBody)
[f3b454b634a3] SubClassOf(sol:Planet, sol:CelestialBody)
[e4e965a69712] SubClassOf(sol:Moon, sol:CelestialBody)
[3f335b35490c] SubClassOf(sol:TerrestrialPlanet, sol:Planet)
[7bc195f4d6a6] SubClassOf(sol:Planet, ObjectSomeValuesFrom(sol:orbits, sol:Star))
[f3de1afbfd6c] SubClassOf(sol:Moon, ObjectSomeValuesFrom(sol:orbits, sol:Planet))

Now query the structure. match_axioms does structural pattern matching: ?vars bind to whatever fills the slot, and every match is saved as a selection.

>>> match_axioms(
...     path="solar.ontology.db",
...     pattern={
...         "sub_class": "?body",
...         "super_class": {"property": "sol:orbits", "filler": "?center"},
...     },
...     into="orbits",
... )

Saved 2 axioms to "orbits".
[7bc195f4d6a6] SubClassOf(sol:Planet, ObjectSomeValuesFrom(sol:orbits, sol:Star))
[f3de1afbfd6c] SubClassOf(sol:Moon, ObjectSomeValuesFrom(sol:orbits, sol:Planet))

Selections persist and compose. A second match grabs every axiom where sol:Planet is the sub-class; create_selection intersects the two to find the one axiom that is both about Planet and describes an orbit.

>>> match_axioms(
...     path="solar.ontology.db",
...     pattern={"sub_class": "sol:Planet", "super_class": "?super"},
...     into="planet_facts",
... )

Saved 2 axioms to "planet_facts".
[7bc195f4d6a6] SubClassOf(sol:Planet, ObjectSomeValuesFrom(sol:orbits, sol:Star))
[f3b454b634a3] SubClassOf(sol:Planet, sol:CelestialBody)


>>> create_selection(
...     path="solar.ontology.db",
...     name="planet_orbit",
...     expr={"intersect": ["orbits", "planet_facts"]},
... )

Saved 1 axiom to "planet_orbit".
[7bc195f4d6a6] SubClassOf(sol:Planet, ObjectSomeValuesFrom(sol:orbits, sol:Star))

What you can do

• Build an ontology from scratch by talking to an agent
• Poke around an existing one: search by text or structure, inspect entities
• Hand an agent an existing ontology and ask it to clean up or extend
• Dump everything to JSONL for sharing or archival
• Manage prefix mappings and axiom-level annotations

Tools

Setup create_ontology | set_prefix | remove_prefix

Build

• add_axioms - add validated axioms; duplicates are skipped
• remove_axioms - remove by hash or by axiom selection
• annotate_axiom - change axiom-level annotations without touching identity
• replace_axiom - atomic delete + add for one axiom
• rename_iri - rewrite an IRI across all (or scoped) axioms

Query

• describe_ontology - entity and axiom counts, top entities, prefix mappings
• get_entity - roles, annotations, and asserted axiom counts for one entity
• find_entities - text search, optionally filtered by role or namespace
• find_axioms - text search on axiom-level annotations
• find_duplicate_entities - entities sharing the same value for an annotation property
• match_axioms - structural pattern matching with ?vars and * wildcards

Selections - named, persistent sets of axiom hashes or entity IRIs

• create_selection - build from set algebra over existing selections
• read_selection - paginated view with present/missing visibility
• list_selections - show all named selections
• remove_selections - drop one or more selections

Export export_jsonl - dump all axioms to a sorted JSONL file

Getting started

Requires Python 3.12 and uv.

git clone git@github.com:ExtensityAI/ontoloom.git
cd ontoloom

Claude Code plugin (recommended)

/plugins add /path/to/ontoloom/plugins/claude-plugin

Manual MCP configuration

Drop this into your .mcp.json, adjusting the paths for your clone:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ontoloom": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["run", "--project", "packages/mcp", "python", "-m", "ontoloom_mcp.server"]
    }
  }
}

Standalone

uv run --project packages/mcp python -m ontoloom_mcp.server

Sandboxing (optional)

Set ONTOLOOM_WORKSPACE_ROOT=/path/to/workspace to confine all Ontology(...), export_jsonl, and import paths to that directory tree. Useful when running an agent that may take instructions from untrusted documents - the agent can't open or write SQLite files outside the workspace. Unset (default) means unrestricted single-user behavior.

How it works

Each ontology lives in a single .db file that works the same whether it has a dozen axioms or millions. SQLite is the source of truth; the MCP layer is the only writer, so axioms are always validated before they reach disk.

Axioms are typed Pydantic models hashed by canonical logical content, ignoring annotations - you can edit a comment without changing the hash, and exact duplicates are caught automatically.

Status

Alpha. The pieces work and are in use, but the API isn't frozen yet. Issues and PRs welcome.

License

BSD-3-Clause - see LICENSE.