NARA Catalog for VS Code

io.github.ianderso/nara-catalog-mcp

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

client:VS Code transport:stdio runtime:pypi

Install NARA Catalog in VS Code

.vscode/mcp.json

{
  "inputs": [
    {
      "type": "promptString",
      "id": "nara-api-key",
      "description": "NARA_API_KEY",
      "password": true
    },
    {
      "type": "promptString",
      "id": "nara-cache-dir",
      "description": "NARA_CACHE_DIR",
      "password": true
    },
    {
      "type": "promptString",
      "id": "nara-timeout",
      "description": "NARA_TIMEOUT",
      "password": true
    },
    {
      "type": "promptString",
      "id": "nara-monthly-call-budget",
      "description": "NARA_MONTHLY_CALL_BUDGET",
      "password": true
    }
  ],
  "servers": {
    "nara-catalog-mcp": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "nara-catalog-mcp"
      ],
      "env": {
        "NARA_API_KEY": "${input:nara-api-key}",
        "NARA_CACHE_DIR": "${input:nara-cache-dir}",
        "NARA_TIMEOUT": "${input:nara-timeout}",
        "NARA_MONTHLY_CALL_BUDGET": "${input:nara-monthly-call-budget}"
      }
    }
  }
}

VS Code prompts for each input the first time the server starts, so no secret is written to the file. VS Code docs

NARA Catalog in other clients

NARA Catalog MCP server