smithsonian-mcp-server

List Valid Filter Terms

smithsonian_list_terms

Read-onlyIdempotent

Enumerate the valid term vocabulary for an indexed Smithsonian filter field (unit_code, culture, place, date, online_media_type, topic). Terms are a controlled vocabulary — often plural or qualified (e.g. "Paintings", not "Painting") — so guessed filter values tend to return nothing. Returns a page of the field's distinct term values; large vocabularies (topic has 133k terms, place 114k) page via start and rows. For unit_code, each code is returned with its museum name and contains matches the name as well as the code, so a museum name resolves to its code in one call.

Tool call template

Replace each placeholder with a value matching the input schema. Only required parameters are included; add optional parameters as needed.

{
  "id": 1,
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "arguments": {
      "field": "<field>"
    },
    "name": "smithsonian_list_terms"
  }
}

Input Schema

Name	Required	Description
`rows`	No	Number of terms to return per page (default 50). A value above 40000 is served at 40000 with a notice.
`field`	Yes	Indexed field to enumerate. Choices: unit_code (museum codes like "NASM"), culture (e.g. "Aztecs"), place (geographic terms), date (decade/era values like "1920s"), online_media_type (media formats like "Images", "3D Models"), topic (subject terms like "Quilts" — 133k terms, so pair it with contains).
`start`	No	Pagination offset (0-indexed). Use with rows to page through large vocabularies.
`contains`	No	Case-insensitive substring filter on the term vocabulary — resolve a filter value (e.g. "greek") to its exact controlled-vocabulary term(s). For unit_code the substring also matches each code's museum name, so "National Air and Space" resolves to "NASM".

Output Schema

Name	Required	Description
`cap`	No	The page size served: rows as requested, or its cap when rows exceeded it.
`error`	No	Present when the call failed. Absent on success.
`field`	No	The enumerated field, as provided in the request.
`shown`	No	Number of terms returned in this page.
`terms`	No	The field's distinct term values for this page, in the Smithsonian index's native order. No per-term object counts are available upstream.
`total`	No	Total number of distinct terms for this field (the full vocabulary size; terms is one page of it).
`labels`	No	Museum name for each unit_code on this page that has one — present only when field is "unit_code". A few rarely-indexed archive sub-unit codes have no mapped name and are absent from this map; their term is still returned in terms.
`notice`	No	Guidance naming the input that retrieves the terms this page omitted, or how to broaden a contains filter that matched nothing. Opens with the page size served when rows exceeded its cap.
`truncated`	No	True when matching terms remain past this page. False on a terminal or past-the-end page, where nothing is being withheld.
`truncationCeiling`	No	Distinct terms available for this query (the full vocabulary, or the contains-match count) — upper bound for omitted items.

Schema Changelog

Changes observed during successful MCP inspections.

Changed5 schema fields changedNov 1, 2026

changedInput schema / properties / rows / description

Previous value: -"Number of terms to return per page (default 50, max 100)."New value: +"Number of terms to return per page (default 50). A value above 40000 is served at 40000 with a notice."

removedInput schema / properties / rows / maximum
```
Removed value: -100
```
addedInput schema / properties / rows / multipleOf
```
Added value: +1
```

changedOutput schema / properties / cap / description

Previous value: -"The rows cap that was applied."New value: +"The page size served: rows as requested, or its cap when rows exceeded it."

changedOutput schema / properties / notice / description

Previous value: -"Guidance naming the input that retrieves the terms this page omitted, or how to broaden a contains filter that matched nothing."New value: +"Guidance naming the input that retrieves the terms this page omitted, or how to broaden a contains filter that matched nothing. Opens with the page size served when rows exceeded its cap."

Changed1 schema field changedOct 18, 2026

changedOutput schema / properties / terms / items / description

Previous value: -"A term value — pass directly as the filter value in smithsonian_search_objects or smithsonian_browse_category."New value: +"A term value for the corresponding smithsonian_search_objects filter. online_media_type values feed search only; browse_category supports museum (unit_code), culture, period (date), medium (object_type), and topic, with no media-type or place mode."

Changed6 schema fields changedAug 25, 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": [
+      "field",
+      "terms",
+      "total"
+    ]
+  },
+  {
+    "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: `no_terms`: The field returned no indexed terms. Other values are possible when a failure originates below the handler.",
+          "examples": [
+            "no_terms"
+          ],
+          "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: -[
-  "field",
-  "terms",
-  "total"
-]

Changed2 schema fields changedJul 26, 2026

changedInput schema / properties / field / description

Previous value: -"Indexed field to enumerate. Choices: unit_code (museum codes like \"NASM\"), culture (e.g. \"Aztecs\"), place (geographic terms), date (decade/era values like \"1920s\"), online_media_type (media formats like \"Images\", \"3D Models\")."New value: +"Indexed field to enumerate. Choices: unit_code (museum codes like \"NASM\"), culture (e.g. \"Aztecs\"), place (geographic terms), date (decade/era values like \"1920s\"), online_media_type (media formats like \"Images\", \"3D Models\"), topic (subject terms like \"Quilts\" — 133k terms, so pair it with contains)."

changedInput schema / properties / field / enum

Previous value: -[
-  "unit_code",
-  "culture",
-  "place",
-  "date",
-  "online_media_type"
-]New value: +[
+  "unit_code",
+  "culture",
+  "place",
+  "date",
+  "online_media_type",
+  "topic"
+]

Changed2 schema fields changedJul 25, 2026

changedInput schema / properties / contains / description

Previous value: -"Case-insensitive substring filter on the term vocabulary — resolve a filter value (e.g. \"greek\") to its exact controlled-vocabulary term(s)."New value: +"Case-insensitive substring filter on the term vocabulary — resolve a filter value (e.g. \"greek\") to its exact controlled-vocabulary term(s). For unit_code the substring also matches each code's museum name, so \"National Air and Space\" resolves to \"NASM\"."

addedOutput schema / properties / labels

Added value: +{
+  "additionalProperties": {
+    "type": "string"
+  },
+  "description": "Museum name for each unit_code on this page that has one — present only when field is \"unit_code\". A few rarely-indexed archive sub-unit codes have no mapped name and are absent from this map; their term is still returned in terms.",
+  "propertyNames": {
+    "type": "string"
+  },
+  "type": "object"
+}

Changed1 schema field changedJul 25, 2026

changedOutput schema / properties / terms / items / description

Previous value: -"A term value — pass directly as the filter value in smithsonian_search or smithsonian_explore."New value: +"A term value — pass directly as the filter value in smithsonian_search_objects or smithsonian_browse_category."

Changed2 schema fields changedJul 24, 2026

changedOutput schema / properties / notice / description

Previous value: -"Guidance when a contains filter matched no terms — how to broaden or drop the filter."New value: +"Guidance naming the input that retrieves the terms this page omitted, or how to broaden a contains filter that matched nothing."

changedOutput schema / properties / truncated / description

Previous value: -"True when the term list was capped by the rows parameter."New value: +"True when matching terms remain past this page. False on a terminal or past-the-end page, where nothing is being withheld."

Changed3 schema fields changedJul 11, 2026

addedInput schema / properties / contains

Added value: +{
+  "description": "Case-insensitive substring filter on the term vocabulary — resolve a filter value (e.g. \"greek\") to its exact controlled-vocabulary term(s).",
+  "type": "string"
+}

addedOutput schema / properties / notice

Added value: +{
+  "description": "Guidance when a contains filter matched no terms — how to broaden or drop the filter.",
+  "type": "string"
+}

changedOutput schema / properties / truncationCeiling / description

Previous value: -"Total distinct terms for the field (upper bound for omitted items)."New value: +"Distinct terms available for this query (the full vocabulary, or the contains-match count) — upper bound for omitted items."

Changed10 schema fields changedJul 5, 2026

changedInput schema / properties / field / description

Previous value: -"Indexed field to enumerate. Common choices: unit_code (museum codes like \"NASM\"), object_type (artifact categories like \"Aircraft\"), culture (e.g. \"Aztec\"), place (geographic terms), date (decade values like \"1920s\")."New value: +"Indexed field to enumerate. Choices: unit_code (museum codes like \"NASM\"), culture (e.g. \"Aztecs\"), place (geographic terms), date (decade/era values like \"1920s\"), online_media_type (media formats like \"Images\", \"3D Models\")."

changedInput schema / properties / field / enum

Previous value: -[
-  "unit_code",
-  "object_type",
-  "culture",
-  "place",
-  "date",
-  "media_usage",
-  "online_media_type"
-]New value: +[
+  "unit_code",
+  "culture",
+  "place",
+  "date",
+  "online_media_type"
+]

changedOutput schema / properties / terms / description

Previous value: -"Valid term vocabulary for the field, sorted by count descending."New value: +"The field's distinct term values for this page, in the Smithsonian index's native order. No per-term object counts are available upstream."

removedOutput schema / properties / terms / items / additionalProperties
```
Removed value: -false
```

changedOutput schema / properties / terms / items / description

Previous value: -"A single term entry with its object count."New value: +"A term value — pass directly as the filter value in smithsonian_search or smithsonian_explore."

removedOutput schema / properties / terms / items / properties

Removed value: -{
-  "count": {
-    "description": "Number of Smithsonian objects indexed under this term.",
-    "type": "number"
-  },
-  "value": {
-    "description": "Term string — pass directly as the filter value in smithsonian_search or smithsonian_explore.",
-    "type": "string"
-  }
-}

removedOutput schema / properties / terms / items / required
```
Removed value: -[
-  "value",
-  "count"
-]
```
changedOutput schema / properties / terms / items / type
```
Previous value: -"object"New value: +"string"
```

changedOutput schema / properties / total / description

Previous value: -"Total number of distinct terms for this field in the Smithsonian index."New value: +"Total number of distinct terms for this field (the full vocabulary size; terms is one page of it)."

changedOutput schema / required

Previous value: -[
-  "field",
-  "terms",
-  "total",
-  "truncated",
-  "shown",
-  "cap"
-]New value: +[
+  "field",
+  "terms",
+  "total"
+]

Changed5 schema fields changedJun 13, 2026

addedOutput schema / properties / cap

Added value: +{
+  "description": "The rows cap that was applied.",
+  "type": "number"
+}

addedOutput schema / properties / shown

Added value: +{
+  "description": "Number of terms returned in this page.",
+  "type": "number"
+}

addedOutput schema / properties / truncated

Added value: +{
+  "description": "True when the term list was capped by the rows parameter.",
+  "type": "boolean"
+}

addedOutput schema / properties / truncationCeiling

Added value: +{
+  "description": "Total distinct terms for the field (upper bound for omitted items).",
+  "type": "number"
+}

changedOutput schema / required

Previous value: -[
-  "field",
-  "terms",
-  "total"
-]New value: +[
+  "field",
+  "terms",
+  "total",
+  "truncated",
+  "shown",
+  "cap"
+]

AddedJun 5, 2026

TDQS

A4.2/5.0

Behavior4/5

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

Annotations already establish read-only, idempotent, open-world reads. Beyond those, the description discloses paging behavior, the practical 40k cap notice, and the non-obvious unit_code side effect where contains also matches museum names and each code is returned with its name. That last point is genuinely useful behavior not inferable from annotations.

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

Conciseness4/5

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

Four tight sentences, front-loaded with what is enumerated and the failure mode it prevents, then field-specific and paging notes. Slightly dense but every sentence contributes; nothing is padded.

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?

An output schema exists, so return-value explanation is unnecessary. The description covers the controlled-vocabulary gotcha, field scope, pagination, and the unit_code name-resolution behavior — everything an agent needs to call this correctly and interpret results.

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 description coverage is 100%, so all four parameters are already documented, including the enum choices and the contains substring semantics. The description reinforces the plural/qualified vocabulary quirk and paging pattern but adds little syntactic detail beyond what the schema states, so the baseline 3 applies.

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+resource: 'Enumerate the valid term vocabulary for an indexed Smithsonian filter field', and names all six fields. An agent can distinguish this from smithsonian_search_objects at a glance — this resolves vocabulary, that searches records.

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?

Gives a clear motivating condition ('guessed filter values tend to return nothing') and practical routing within the tool (pair topic with contains; page large vocabularies via start/rows; use unit_code to resolve a museum name to a code). It does not explicitly name smithsonian_search_objects as the downstream consumer, leaving the workflow link to inference.

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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List Valid Filter Terms

Tool call template

Input Schema

Output Schema

Schema Changelog

TDQS

Glama MCP Gateway

Resources