national-parks-mcp-server

national-parks-mcp-server: find events

nps_find_events

Read-only

Scheduled events at a park within a date range — ranger programs, festivals, tours, interpretive events — answering "what's happening at Yellowstone this weekend?" with title, dates and times, location, category, fee, and registration links. Get park codes from nps_find_parks. Paginates by page number, not offset. Many parks list few or no events; an empty result is not an error.

Input Schema

TableJSON Schema

Name	Required	Description
`query`	No	Free-text search across event titles/descriptions (e.g. "ranger", "astronomy", "guided").
`dateEnd`	No	End of the date window (YYYY-MM-DD). Use with dateStart.
`pageSize`	No	Maximum events to return per page (1–50). Paginates by page number, not offset — use with pageNumber to walk through results.
`parkCode`	No	Park code, or comma-separated list (e.g. "yell") — 4-letter lowercase codes. Get codes from nps_find_parks. Provide parkCode or stateCode.
`dateStart`	No	Start of the date window (YYYY-MM-DD). Combine with dateEnd to bound the search (e.g. a weekend). Omit for upcoming events from today.
`stateCode`	No	Two-letter state code, or comma-separated list (e.g. "WY", "WY,MT,ID"). Returns events across NPS sites in those states.
`pageNumber`	No	1-based page number. Increment to page through results beyond the first page.

Output Schema

TableJSON Schema

Name	Required	Description
`cap`	No	Page size applied (populated when results were truncated).
`error`	No	Present when the call failed. Absent on success.
`shown`	No	Events returned on this page (populated when the page was capped by pageSize).
`events`	No	Events matching the park/state and date window.
`notice`	No	Guidance on the result set: how to widen a search that matched nothing, the pageNumber for the next page when more events matched, the way back when pageNumber ran past the end, and a warning when NPS reports errors for the request.
`truncated`	No	True when more matching events follow this page; absent on the last page of the result.
`totalCount`	No	Total events matching the filter before the page limit.
`appliedFilters`	No	Echo of parkCode/stateCode/date window/query as applied.

Schema Changelog

Changes observed during successful MCP inspections.

Changed7 schema fields changedSep 24, 2026

removedInput schema / properties / dateEnd / pattern
```
Removed value: -"^\\d{4}-\\d{2}-\\d{2}$"
```
removedInput schema / properties / dateStart / pattern
```
Removed value: -"^\\d{4}-\\d{2}-\\d{2}$"
```

changedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / description / description

Previous value: -"Event description (HTML stripped to plain text)."New value: +"Event description as plain text."

changedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / isRecurring / description

Previous value: -"True when this is a recurring series (multiple occurrence dates). Explains why dateStart/dateEnd may show a single frozen anchor date while occurrenceDates carries the real dates."New value: +"True when this is a recurring series (multiple occurrence dates); dateStart/dateEnd then hold the series anchor and occurrenceDates the actual dates."

changedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / occurrenceDates / description

Previous value: -"Occurrence dates (YYYY-MM-DD) that fall within the requested dateStart/dateEnd window. When no date window is requested, this lists every remaining occurrence from today through the series end. Empty when the window matches no occurrence. Trust this for \"when does this actually happen?\" — dateStart/dateEnd above are the record's anchor and can be stale for a long-running recurring series."New value: +"Dates (YYYY-MM-DD) the event actually occurs within the requested dateStart/dateEnd window; with no window, every remaining occurrence from today through the series end. Empty when the window matches no occurrence. For a recurring series, dateStart/dateEnd hold the series anchor instead."

changedOutput schema / properties / notice / description

Previous value: -"Guidance when no events matched, or a warning when the upstream envelope reported errors."New value: +"Guidance on the result set: how to widen a search that matched nothing, the pageNumber for the next page when more events matched, the way back when pageNumber ran past the end, and a warning when NPS reports errors for the request."

addedOutput schema / properties / truncated

Added value: +{
+  "description": "True when more matching events follow this page; absent on the last page of the result.",
+  "type": "boolean"
+}

Changed16 schema fields changedSep 20, 2026
- removedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / category / anyOf
```
Removed value: -[
-  {
-    "type": "string"
-  },
-  {
-    "type": "null"
-  }
-]
```
- addedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / category / type
```
Added value: +[
+  "string",
+  "null"
+]
```
- removedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / dateEnd / anyOf
```
Removed value: -[
-  {
-    "type": "string"
-  },
-  {
-    "type": "null"
-  }
-]
```
- addedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / dateEnd / type
```
Added value: +[
+  "string",
+  "null"
+]
```
- removedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / dateStart / anyOf
```
Removed value: -[
-  {
-    "type": "string"
-  },
-  {
-    "type": "null"
-  }
-]
```
- addedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / dateStart / type
```
Added value: +[
+  "string",
+  "null"
+]
```
- removedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / feeInfo / anyOf
```
Removed value: -[
-  {
-    "type": "string"
-  },
-  {
-    "type": "null"
-  }
-]
```
- addedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / feeInfo / type
```
Added value: +[
+  "string",
+  "null"
+]
```
- removedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / infoUrl / anyOf
```
Removed value: -[
-  {
-    "type": "string"
-  },
-  {
-    "type": "null"
-  }
-]
```
- addedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / infoUrl / type
```
Added value: +[
+  "string",
+  "null"
+]
```
- removedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / location / anyOf
```
Removed value: -[
-  {
-    "type": "string"
-  },
-  {
-    "type": "null"
-  }
-]
```
- addedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / location / type
```
Added value: +[
+  "string",
+  "null"
+]
```
- removedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / parkCode / anyOf
```
Removed value: -[
-  {
-    "type": "string"
-  },
-  {
-    "type": "null"
-  }
-]
```
- addedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / parkCode / type
```
Added value: +[
+  "string",
+  "null"
+]
```
- removedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / registrationUrl / anyOf
```
Removed value: -[
-  {
-    "type": "string"
-  },
-  {
-    "type": "null"
-  }
-]
```
- addedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / registrationUrl / type
```
Added value: +[
+  "string",
+  "null"
+]
```

Changed6 schema fields changedAug 24, 2026

changedInput schema / $schema

Previous value: -"http://json-schema.org/draft-07/schema#"New value: +"https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema"

addedInput schema / additionalProperties
```
Added value: +false
```

changedOutput schema / $schema

Previous value: -"http://json-schema.org/draft-07/schema#"New value: +"https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema"

addedOutput schema / anyOf

Added value: +[
+  {
+    "not": {
+      "required": [
+        "error"
+      ]
+    },
+    "required": [
+      "events",
+      "totalCount",
+      "appliedFilters"
+    ]
+  },
+  {
+    "required": [
+      "error"
+    ]
+  }
+]

addedOutput schema / properties / error

Added value: +{
+  "additionalProperties": {},
+  "description": "Present when the call failed. Absent on success.",
+  "properties": {
+    "code": {
+      "description": "JSON-RPC error code for this failure.",
+      "maximum": 9007199254740991,
+      "minimum": -9007199254740991,
+      "type": "integer"
+    },
+    "data": {
+      "additionalProperties": {},
+      "properties": {
+        "reason": {
+          "description": "Machine-readable failure mode. Declared by this tool: `invalid_date`: dateStart/dateEnd not YYYY-MM-DD, not a real calendar date (e.g. 2026-02-31), or dateEnd < dateStart. `invalid_park_code`: A parkCode token isn't 4 lowercase letters. `invalid_state_code`: A stateCode token isn't two letters. Other values are possible when a failure originates below the handler.",
+          "examples": [
+            "invalid_date",
+            "invalid_park_code",
+            "invalid_state_code"
+          ],
+          "type": "string"
+        },
+        "recovery": {
+          "additionalProperties": {},
+          "description": "Actionable next step for the caller.",
+          "properties": {
+            "hint": {
+              "type": "string"
+            }
+          },
+          "required": [
+            "hint"
+          ],
+          "type": "object"
+        },
+        "retryable": {
+          "description": "Whether retrying may succeed.",
+          "type": "boolean"
+        }
+      },
+      "type": "object"
+    },
+    "message": {
+      "description": "Human-readable description of what went wrong.",
+      "type": "string"
+    }
+  },
+  "required": [
+    "code",
+    "message"
+  ],
+  "type": "object"
+}

removedOutput schema / required

Removed value: -[
-  "events",
-  "totalCount",
-  "appliedFilters"
-]

Changed9 schema fields changedJul 16, 2026

changedInput schema / properties / parkCode / description

Previous value: -"Park code, or comma-separated list (e.g. \"yell\"). Get codes from nps_find_parks. Provide parkCode or stateCode."New value: +"Park code, or comma-separated list (e.g. \"yell\") — 4-letter lowercase codes. Get codes from nps_find_parks. Provide parkCode or stateCode."

removedInput schema / properties / parkCode / pattern
```
Removed value: -"^[a-z]{4}(,[a-z]{4})*$"
```

changedInput schema / properties / stateCode / description

Previous value: -"Two-letter state code, or comma-separated list. Returns events across NPS sites in those states."New value: +"Two-letter state code, or comma-separated list (e.g. \"WY\", \"WY,MT,ID\"). Returns events across NPS sites in those states."

removedInput schema / properties / stateCode / pattern
```
Removed value: -"^[A-Za-z]{2}(,[A-Za-z]{2})*$"
```

changedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / dateEnd / description

Previous value: -"Event end date (YYYY-MM-DD), or null."New value: +"Event end date (YYYY-MM-DD), or null. For a recurring event this is the anchor date, not the last occurrence — see occurrenceDates and isRecurring."

changedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / dateStart / description

Previous value: -"Event start date (YYYY-MM-DD), or null."New value: +"Event start date (YYYY-MM-DD), or null. For a recurring event this is the series anchor (its original first date), which can predate your requested window — use occurrenceDates for the dates that actually fall in the window."

addedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / isRecurring

Added value: +{
+  "description": "True when this is a recurring series (multiple occurrence dates). Explains why dateStart/dateEnd may show a single frozen anchor date while occurrenceDates carries the real dates.",
+  "type": "boolean"
+}

addedOutput schema / properties / events / items / properties / occurrenceDates

Added value: +{
+  "description": "Occurrence dates (YYYY-MM-DD) that fall within the requested dateStart/dateEnd window. When no date window is requested, this lists every remaining occurrence from today through the series end. Empty when the window matches no occurrence. Trust this for \"when does this actually happen?\" — dateStart/dateEnd above are the record's anchor and can be stale for a long-running recurring series.",
+  "items": {
+    "type": "string"
+  },
+  "type": "array"
+}

changedOutput schema / properties / events / items / required

Previous value: -[
-  "id",
-  "title",
-  "parkCode",
-  "description",
-  "location",
-  "dateStart",
-  "dateEnd",
-  "times",
-  "category",
-  "isFree",
-  "feeInfo",
-  "registrationUrl",
-  "infoUrl"
-]New value: +[
+  "id",
+  "title",
+  "parkCode",
+  "description",
+  "location",
+  "dateStart",
+  "dateEnd",
+  "occurrenceDates",
+  "isRecurring",
+  "times",
+  "category",
+  "isFree",
+  "feeInfo",
+  "registrationUrl",
+  "infoUrl"
+]

First observedJun 16, 2026

TDQS

A4.3/5.0

Behavior4/5

Does the description disclose side effects, auth requirements, rate limits, or destructive behavior?

Annotations already establish read-only and open-world behavior, so the description adds value with operational details: pagination is by page number rather than offset, and empty results are expected for many parks rather than errors. This goes beyond what annotations and schema expose.

Agents need to know what a tool does to the world before calling it. Descriptions should go beyond structured annotations to explain consequences.

Conciseness5/5

Is the description appropriately sized, front-loaded, and free of redundancy?

Four effective sentences with the core operation front-loaded, followed by a use case, prerequisite, pagination detail, and expected-empty-result behavior. Every sentence earns its place with distinct information.

Shorter descriptions cost fewer tokens and are easier for agents to parse. Every sentence should earn its place.

Completeness5/5

Given the tool's complexity, does the description cover enough for an agent to succeed on first attempt?

For a read-only lookup with a full output schema and 100% parameter coverage, the description covers the key operational risks: how to scope by park or date, how to page through results, and how to interpret empty lists. Nothing essential to invoking it correctly is missing.

Complex tools with many parameters or behaviors need more documentation. Simple tools need less. This dimension scales expectations accordingly.

Parameters3/5

Does the description clarify parameter syntax, constraints, interactions, or defaults beyond what the schema provides?

Schema coverage is 100%, so the seven parameters are already fully documented. The description adds helpful orientation about date range, sourcing park codes, and page-number pagination, but it does not need to re-explain individual parameters.

Input schemas describe structure but not intent. Descriptions should explain non-obvious parameter relationships and valid value ranges.

Purpose5/5

Does the description clearly state what the tool does and how it differs from similar tools?

States a specific verb and resource — 'find' scheduled 'events' — and scopes it to a park within a date range. The natural-language example 'what's happening at Yellowstone this weekend?' makes the operation unmistakable, and the resource clearly separates it from sibling tools for parks, campgrounds, alerts, and activities.

Agents choose between tools based on descriptions. A clear purpose with a specific verb and resource helps agents select the right tool.

Usage Guidelines4/5

Does the description explain when to use this tool, when not to, or what alternatives exist?

The description provides a clear use case — date-bounded scheduled events — and instructs the agent to get park codes from nps_find_parks. It does not explicitly name when-not alternatives, such as using nps_get_alerts for hazards, but the query framing makes the intended context evident.

Agents often have multiple tools that could apply. Explicit usage guidance like "use X instead of Y when Z" prevents misuse.

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