Thea — an open library your LLM can read
Thea is a free, people-curated knowledge graph that starts from places:
about 1.07 million places in Korea from Korean public data, plus people, works, organizations, games
and dated records (new episodes, releases, openings) that people add and check.
It is read-only for AI, needs no API key and no login, and the data is CC BY 4.0.
Sorry — for now, most of Thea is Korean. Other countries only have their regions set up so far. If you know places in your area, please add them at thealibrary.org.
Your model doesn't know what happened last week, or the noodle shop down the street.
The open web is mostly bot walls, logins and JavaScript. Thea is already open and already trimmed:
one entry is about 1 KB of fields, not a scraped page.
This repository is the connection kit: config snippets, tool definitions and a small example.
Connect over MCP
One URL: https://thealibrary.org/mcp (Streamable HTTP, read-only, no auth).
Listed in the official MCP Registry as org.thealibrary/thea.
| Client | How |
|---|
| Claude (web, desktop) | Customize → Connectors → + Add → Add custom connector → the URL above. The free plan allows one custom connector. |
| ChatGPT (web) | chatgpt.com/plugins → + → Add custom MCP server → the URL above → No authentication → create as a plugin → install, then @ in a chat. Confirmed on Business, Enterprise, Edu; Plus and Pro not yet confirmed. |
| Gemini app | Not yet confirmed (open only to US, English, personal accounts; no-login servers unconfirmed) |
| Gemini CLI | gemini mcp add --transport http thea https://thealibrary.org/mcp, or ~/.gemini/settings.json: {"mcpServers": {"thea": {"httpUrl": "https://thealibrary.org/mcp"}}} |
| LM Studio (0.3.17+) | Program → Install → Edit mcp.json: {"mcpServers": {"thea": {"url": "https://thealibrary.org/mcp"}}} |
| Ollama (ollmcp, third-party) | ollmcp --mcp-server-url https://thealibrary.org/mcp --model <model> |
| Open WebUI (0.6.31+, admin) | Admin Settings → Integrations → External Tool Servers → + → MCP (Streamable HTTP) → the URL above → auth None |
| Grok | grok.com/connectors → New Connector → Custom → the URL above |
An "unverified service" warning while connecting is normal for any connector you add yourself. Thea is read-only and takes no login or personal data.
Step-by-step guide in five languages: https://thealibrary.org/connect
Menu names change often; these were checked against each official doc on 2026-10-19.
No MCP? Use function calling
tools.json (or the live copy at https://thealibrary.org/ai/tools.json) is in the OpenAI tool format
used by Ollama, llama.cpp, vLLM, SGLang and LM Studio. Give it to your model and run the tool it picks:
| Tool | Route | For |
|---|
thea_search | /ai/search?q= | one entry whose name you know |
thea_find | /ai/find | things matching conditions (e.g. noodle shops in a district, Japanese idols active in Korea, games released since a date) |
thea_entry | /ai/planet/{id} | the full entry by id |
Plain text works too: https://thealibrary.org/p/{id}.md, and the overview at https://thealibrary.org/llms.txt.
examples/ollama_tools.py shows the whole loop with a local Ollama model.
What you get back
Fields, links to related entries, and who wrote them: written_by is human, ai, public_data or wiki,
checked_by counts explorers who checked it against a source. AI-written fields nobody has checked yet are marked,
so your model can weigh them.
License and attribution
This kit (code, config, examples): MIT — see LICENSE.
Data served by Thea: CC BY 4.0. Values that came from a source keep that source's terms (see each entry's source).
When you use it in an answer, add one line:
Source: [Thea](https://thealibrary.org) · CC BY 4.0
Missing something? Anyone can add it at thealibrary.org, or post a request for it.
