The engine

The engine behind Open Museum.

open-museum-mcp is the open-source MCP server that powers this site: one search across the world’s open-access museum collections, with per-museum rights verification and ready-to-use citations. Install it in your own agent or MCP client below.

Install

Claude Desktop Download the .mcpb bundle and double-click it. VS Code Open the prefilled install dialog (needs Copilot Chat). Cursor Open Cursor’s built-in MCP install.

Any other MCP client: paste this config and restart. npx fetches and runs the server on first launch.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "open-museum": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "open-museum-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Node 22.x needs NODE_OPTIONS=--experimental-sqlite; Node 24+ needs no flag.

From source (for contributors)

Clone the repo, npm install, npm run build, then point your MCP config at dist/server.js. Full steps are in CONTRIBUTING.md.

What you get

One search runs across every connected collection at once. Every record is rights-checked at its source museum before it is returned, and arrives with a citation ready to paste. Nothing is generated: the metadata is the museum’s, normalised into one shape.

search_artworks
get_artwork
cite
discover_random
list_traditions
facets
clearance_record

Strict default-deny: a record whose open-access status is missing or ambiguous is never returned.

Install

What you get

Know an open collection we should add?