@urbankitstudio/mcp-atlas

Query the parcel ArcGIS REST endpoints of 499 counties across 51 US states (50 states plus DC), 497 endpoints total, for owner, APN and address lookup via the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

An MCP server that gives AI assistants direct access to UrbanKit Studio's atlas of manually verified county parcel GIS services. Ask Claude or Cursor to find the ArcGIS REST endpoint for any covered county, get the exact owner-search query URL, and look up parcel data — without needing to know anything about ArcGIS REST API conventions.

Coverage: 499 counties across 51 US states (50 states plus DC), 497 endpoints, 497 of them live (atlas 0.6.40). 470 of the counties have an endpoint; for the other 29 the atlas records why not (see "A county we cannot serve" below).

---

Quick start

Claude Desktop

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-atlas": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@urbankitstudio/mcp-atlas"]
    }
  }
}

Cursor

Add to .cursor/mcp.json in your project root (or ~/.cursor/mcp.json globally):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-atlas": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@urbankitstudio/mcp-atlas"]
    }
  }
}

Install globally (optional)

npm install -g @urbankitstudio/mcp-atlas

Then use mcp-atlas as the command instead of npx -y @urbankitstudio/mcp-atlas.

---

Tools

The first four tools are one county pipeline, and what separates them is how precisely you can already name the county. The fifth, get_city_datasets, is separate: it answers about a city, not a county.

You have	Use	You get
A state, or nothing	list_counties	Which counties are covered, and whether owner search works there. No URLs.
A vague, misspelled or FIPS reference	find_county	Every county that reference matches, named, each with its record
An exact state and county	get_parcel_endpoint	That one county's endpoint URL, layer, fields and sample query
A county and an owner's name	build_owner_query	A runnable URL that searches for that name
A city, and optionally a street	get_city_datasets	That city's code-violation, building-permit and zoning-case datasets, each with a runnable query URL

find_county and get_parcel_endpoint return the same per-county record. They differ in how you address the county: find_county accepts an uncertain reference and may come back with several candidates, get_parcel_endpoint takes an exact pair and answers about one. If you already know the county, skip find_county.

This server never executes a query and returns no parcel records. It tells you the URL to fetch; fetching it is yours to do.

A county we cannot serve

find_county, get_parcel_endpoint and build_owner_query give one answer for a county with no endpoint to hand back, the same text the hosted UrbanKit MCP server, its REST API and the uks CLI give. It comes from coverageAnswer() in @urbankitstudio/atlas 0.6.38:

• The atlas has no record (a misspelling lands here too): "This county is not in the UrbanKit atlas", with a prompt to check the spelling first.
• The atlas records the county and it publishes nothing we can serve (Shelby TN, whose terms bar public display; Columbia PA, whose layer has parcel numbers only): the reason in one sentence, the date we last checked, the date of the next check when one is set, the county's own office and, where the county sells the data, its own product.

Both end with a free request for the county: a ready body for request_county on the hosted MCP server or POST https://urbankitstudio.com/api/atlas/request. Requesting does not promise we add the county. list_counties still lists only the counties we serve.

list_counties

Browse coverage. Answers "is this county covered?" and "what can I search there?" — one line per county, with no endpoint URLs or field names.

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
state	string	No	Two-letter abbreviation (IL) or full name (Illinois)

Example prompt: "List all covered counties in Illinois"

Example output:

ST | County               | Slug                     | Coverage
--------------------------------------------------------------------
IL | Kane                 | kane-county              | owner+APN
IL | Cook                 | cook-county              | APN only
IL | DuPage               | dupage-county            | owner+APN
...

What each Coverage label promises:

Label	Meaning
owner+APN	build_owner_query returns a URL for at least one endpoint
APN only (county publishes no owner name)	A reviewed record says the county serves no usable owner name
location queries only	No endpoint answers attribute searches; parcels are reached by geometry, which also returns owner fields
APN only (owner column not searchable)	An owner column exists but the county marks it unsearchable by name; a parcel-id or location query returns it
APN only	No endpoint documents an owner column

---

find_county

Resolves a reference you cannot state exactly. Fuzzy-matches a partial or misspelled name, a "County State" phrase, or a 5-digit FIPS code against every covered county, and names each county it matched so an ambiguous reference comes back as a list to choose from. Each match carries that county's record: endpoint URLs, searchable field names, owner field, sample query, license.

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
query	string	Yes	County name (Kane), name+state (Kane IL), or FIPS (17089)

Example prompt: "Find the parcel endpoint for Kane County Illinois"

---

get_parcel_endpoint

The default lookup once the county is known. Returns the full ArcGIS REST URL, layer index, searchable fields, owner field (or why no owner query is offered), the county's Scope: predicate when the layer is shared statewide or regionally, a generic sample ?where=…&f=json query and the UrbanKit deep-link for one county. For a named owner, use build_owner_query rather than editing the sample query by hand.

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
state	string	Yes	Two-letter abbreviation or full name
county	string	Yes	County name (Kane or Kane County)

Example prompt: "Give me the ArcGIS REST endpoint for Cook County Illinois"

---

build_owner_query

The only tool that searches for a named owner. Fills a person or company name into the county's verified owner/taxpayer field as UPPER(field) LIKE UPPER('%NAME%'), a case-insensitive partial match, and returns a URL you can fetch or open. On a shared statewide or regional layer (Connecticut's regional composites, for example) the county's scope predicate is ANDed in front, as (scope) AND UPPER(field) LIKE …, so only that county's rows come back.

An endpoint is refused, with the reason, rather than handed a query that finds nothing or hangs:

• a reviewed record says the county publishes no usable owner name;
• the layer serves no attribute search at all (query it by location instead);
• the owner column is not searchable by name (use a parcel-id or location query).

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
state	string	Yes	Two-letter abbreviation or full name
county	string	Yes	County name
owner_name	string	Yes	Owner/taxpayer name (partial match)

Example prompt: "Build an ArcGIS query for properties owned by 'Smith' in Kane County IL"

Example output:

County:       Kane, Illinois
Owner field:  TaxName
WHERE clause: UPPER(TaxName) LIKE UPPER('%SMITH%')

Query URL:
https://gistech.countyofkane.org/arcgis/rest/services/KanePINList/MapServer/0/query
  ?where=UPPER(TaxName)%20LIKE%20UPPER('%25SMITH%25')
  &outFields=PIN,TaxName,SiteAddress,SiteCity,MailingAddress
  &returnGeometry=false&f=json&resultRecordCount=25

---

get_city_datasets

City code-violation, building-permit and zoning-case datasets. Give a city slug (fort-worth) or name (Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX), optionally a kind and a street line, and it returns each verified dataset for that city: the endpoint and provider (Socrata, ArcGIS, CKAN or CARTO), the column the address is matched on, the date field, any filter that is part of the dataset's definition, coverage and freshness notes, and, when you pass a street, a ready query_url to run against the city's own server. Omit city to list every covered city.

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
city	string (max 80)	No	City slug or name; omit to list covered cities
state	string (max 40)	No	Two-letter code or state name, for a name used in two states
kind	violations | permits | zoning	No	Return only that kind of dataset
street	string (max 120)	No	Street line only, such as Commerce or 600 Commerce St. Cut at the first comma, so a full address is safe to pass

• A name shared by two cities comes back as found: false, ambiguous: true with the candidates; repeat with state. A city outside the registry comes back as found: false with the covered cities in its state, or in its county when the reference names one.
• query_url is null for a point lookup (a polygon docket or a current-zoning map); the dataset's query_template then carries the request with a {LON},{LAT} placeholder to fill in.
• Scope is the city's limits, not the county. These tables hold no owner data: for a parcel's owner, use the county tools above.
• Like the county tools, this one fetches nothing. It answers from the atlas package and hands you URLs to run yourself. Socrata throttles anonymous callers, so send your own X-App-Token header for volume.
• It is the same tool the hosted UrbanKit MCP serves, with the same advertised inputs and response keys. The stdio server holds arguments to that schema strictly: kind must be violations, permits or zoning in lower case.

Example prompt: "Where do I pull open building permits for 600 Commerce St, Dallas?"

Example output (abridged):

{
  "found": true,
  "city": { "slug": "dallas", "name": "Dallas", "state_abbrev": "TX", "county_slug": "dallas-county" },
  "street": "600 Commerce St",
  "datasets": [
    {
      "kind": "permits",
      "provider": "socrata",
      "endpoint": "https://www.dallasopendata.com/resource/e7gq-4sah.json",
      "address_field": "street_address",
      "street_used": "600 Commerce St",
      "query_url": "https://www.dallasopendata.com/resource/e7gq-4sah.json?$where=upper(street_address)%20like%20upper('%25600%20Commerce%20St%25')&$limit=30"
    }
  ]
}

---

Example conversation

User: I'm doing due diligence on properties in Kane County, Illinois. Can you find all parcels owned by "Blackstone"?

Claude (using mcp-atlas):

1. Calls get_parcel_endpoint → gets the gistech.countyofkane.org URL and confirms the owner field is TaxName
2. Calls build_owner_query with owner_name=Blackstone → returns a ready fetch URL
3. Optionally fetches the URL and formats the parcel results

---

Atlas coverage

The atlas is maintained by UrbanKit Studio. All endpoints are manually verified. Counties with an owner/taxpayer field support full name-based lookups; PIN-only counties support APN/parcel-number queries.

Full coverage map: https://urbankitstudio.com/parcel-atlas

---

Data

Atlas data is embedded in the package (no network calls at startup). The underlying @urbankitstudio/atlas SDK is also published separately for programmatic use.

---

What Socket flags, and how much of it is ours

Socket's supply-chain scanner rates this package in the mid-70s. Clicking through shows a long alert list. Each alert, checked rather than waved away:

Alert	Whose	What it is
usesEval	Not ours	No eval or new Function anywhere in src/. It comes from a dependency.
unmaintained (21)	Not ours	Transitive dependencies last published 2017–2021.
mixedLicense	Not ours	A dependency published as BSD-3-Clause AND ISC.
noTests	Ours, by design	files ships dist only. The suite lives in test/ and runs in CI. Shipping tests inside the tarball would be the defect.
networkAccess, filesystemAccess, envVars, shellAccess	Ours	An MCP server talks to a client over stdio and reads its own config. A server without these could not do the job.
unpopularPackage, noV1	Ours	Download count and a 0.x version. Both resolve with time, neither is a code issue.

Vulnerability and license both come back at 100, quality at 99. The number the badge shows is the supply-chain sub-score, and its single largest deduction is download count, a popularity measure wearing a security badge's clothes. Judge the list above, not the digit.

The four access alerts are what let the server read its own config and talk to a client over stdio, nothing more. It still never executes a query or returns a parcel record.

License

MIT — © 2026 UrbanKit Studio