NARA Catalog MCP Server

by ianderso Your server? Claim it

local only

NARA Catalog runs on your own machine — the client starts it, so there is no endpoint to ping. 995 installs a week from pypi. Last commit 6 Oct 2026.

Genealogical research in the US National Archives Catalog: records, transcriptions, page images.

Installs per day peak 715 · avg 69 · -10% w/w

a month agotoday

995

Installs / week

pypi · nara-catalog-mcp

Stars

0 open issues

6 Oct 2026

Last commit

from GitHub

MIT

License

Python

Nothing serious here today

Today is the operative word: we check NARA Catalog every 15 minutes and re-read its code on every release. Watch it and you find out the day that stops being true.

Connect this server

This server runs on your own machine — install it with the package manager and the client starts it for you. Package name taken from the official registry entry.

Claude Code Claude Desktop Codex Cursor VS Code

run in your terminal

claude mcp add nara-catalog-mcp -- uvx nara-catalog-mcp

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "nara-catalog-mcp": {
      "args": [
        "nara-catalog-mcp"
      ],
      "command": "uvx"
    }
  }
}

~/.codex/config.toml

[mcp_servers.nara-catalog-mcp]
command = "uvx"
args = ["nara-catalog-mcp"]

.cursor/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "nara-catalog-mcp": {
      "args": [
        "nara-catalog-mcp"
      ],
      "command": "uvx"
    }
  }
}

.vscode/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "nara-catalog-mcp": {
      "args": [
        "nara-catalog-mcp"
      ],
      "command": "uvx"
    }
  }
}

This one needs environment variables set before it will start: NARA_API_KEY (Catalog API key, requested from the National Archives Catalog API team.), NARA_CACHE_DIR (Directory for the on-disk response cache.), NARA_TIMEOUT (HTTP timeout in seconds.), NARA_MONTHLY_CALL_BUDGET (Calls per month the key allows, reported by api_budget.). The author declared them in the registry entry; get the values from the project itself.

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NARA Catalog — questions

Answers built from our own checks of this server.

Why is there no uptime for NARA Catalog?

NARA Catalog runs on your own machine over stdio — there is no network address to reach, so uptime cannot be measured for it by anyone. What can be measured is adoption: the pypi package nara-catalog-mcp was installed 995 times last week.

How do I connect NARA Catalog?

Copy the ready config from this page — we generate it for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor and VS Code, each with the file path that client actually reads. It runs locally, so the command pulls nara-catalog-mcp straight from pypi; nothing to host, nothing to sign up for.

How many people use NARA Catalog?

The pypi package nara-catalog-mcp was installed 995 times in the last week. Week over week that is -10%. We show installs rather than GitHub stars on purpose: a star is a bookmark, an install is someone actually running it.

Is NARA Catalog open source?

Yes — it is published under the MIT licence, written in Python and 0 stars on GitHub. The source link is on this page, so you can read exactly what it does with your data before you connect it.