Google Maps Places MCP

# google-maps-places-mcp MCP server for Google Maps Places API - search for places and get photos. ## Use Cases **Meeting coordination**: Someone emails "Let's meet at Nando's near the office - what time works best for you?" → your AI assistant looks up the location, checks opening hours, and adds it to your calendar with the address. **Local recommendations**: Ask "find a quiet café with WiFi near King's Cross for a 2-hour work session" → get places with ratings, hours, and photos to help you decide. **Address validation**: Confirm or autocomplete partial addresses before sending mail or booking deliveries. (These are just examples - any workflow that needs place search or business info can use this.) ## Setup ### 1. Create Google OAuth credentials 1. Go to [Google Cloud Console](https://console.cloud.google.com/) 2. Create a new project (or use existing) 3. Enable the **Places API (New)** 4. Go to **APIs & Services** → **OAuth consent screen**, set up consent screen 5. Go to **APIs & Services** → **Credentials** → **Create Credentials** → **OAuth client ID** 6. Choose **Web application** 7. Add `http://localhost:3000/callback` to **Authorized redirect URIs** 8. Note your Client ID and Client Secret ### 2. Run the server ```bash GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID='your-client-id' \ GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET='your-client-secret' \ MCP_TRANSPORT=http \ npm start ``` The server runs on `http://localhost:3000` by default. Change with `PORT=3001`. ### 3. Add to your MCP client ```bash claude mcp add --transport http google-maps-places-mcp http://localhost:3000/mcp ``` ## Architecture This server acts as an **OAuth proxy** to Google: ```mermaid graph LR A[MCP client] <--> B[google-maps-places-mcp] <--> C[Google OAuth/API] ``` 1. Server advertises itself as an OAuth authorization server via `/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server` 2. `/register` returns the Google OAuth client credentials 3. `/authorize` redirects to Google, encoding the client's callback URL in state 4. `/callback` receives the code from Google and forwards to the client's callback 5. `/token` proxies token requests to Google, injecting client credentials 6. `/mcp` handles MCP requests, using the bearer token to call Places API The server holds no tokens or state - it just proxies OAuth to Google. ## Tools | Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | `places_text_search` | Search for places by text query (e.g., "coffee shops near me") | | `places_photo_get` | Get a photo URL for a place | ## OAuth Scope - `cloud-platform` - Access to Google Cloud APIs (required for Places API New) ## Contributing Pull requests are welcomed on GitHub! To get started: 1. Install Git and Node.js 2. Clone the repository 3. Install dependencies with `npm install` 4. Run `npm run test` to run tests 5. Build with `npm run build` ## Releases Versions follow the [semantic versioning spec](https://semver.org/). To release: 1. Use `npm version <major | minor | patch>` to bump the version 2. Run `git push --follow-tags` to push with tags 3. Wait for GitHub Actions to publish to the NPM registry.