FDSNWS Event MCP Server

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for querying the FDSN Web Service Event APIs of multiple seismological datacenters (INGV, IRIS, EMSC, GFZ, etc.) and retrieving earthquake information as JSON.

Features

• Multi-datacenter: works with any FDSN-compliant datacenter (INGV, IRIS, EMSC, GFZ, and others)

• 6 MCP tools: event search, single-event detail, arrivals, magnitudes, origins, focal mechanisms

• Two output levels: a compact tabular search result (from FDSN format=text) and a full QuakeML→JSON detail for a single event (the *_by_id tools)

• stdio transport: JSON-RPC 2.0 over stdin/stdout

• Containerized: ready to use with Docker

Related MCP server: wems-mcp-server

Installation

Prerequisites

• Docker

• Python 3.11+ (for local development)

Option A: Pull from Docker Hub (recommended)

Prebuilt multi-arch images (linux/amd64, linux/arm64) are published on Docker Hub:

# Latest release
docker pull ingv/mcp-fdsnws-event:latest

# A specific version (replace X.Y.Z with a published tag)
docker pull ingv/mcp-fdsnws-event:X.Y.Z

An mcpo variant (OpenAPI/REST wrapper, see below) is published under the same repository with a -mcpo suffix, e.g. ingv/mcp-fdsnws-event:latest-mcpo and ingv/mcp-fdsnws-event:X.Y.Z-mcpo.

Option B: Build the container locally

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/INGV/mcp-fdsnws-event.git
cd mcp-fdsnws-event

# Build the Docker image
docker build --no-cache -t ingv/mcp-fdsnws-event .

Usage

Start the MCP server

# Pull the published image (first run only)
docker pull ingv/mcp-fdsnws-event

# Start the MCP server (stdio)
docker run -i --rm ingv/mcp-fdsnws-event

The server listens for MCP connections over stdio.

Testing

# Full unified test suite (recommended)
./run_tests.sh

# Individual runs (if needed)
# Unit tests (offline)
docker run --rm ingv/mcp-fdsnws-event pytest

# MCP protocol smoke test
echo -e '{"jsonrpc": "2.0", "id": 1, "method": "initialize", "params": {"protocolVersion": "2024-11-05", "capabilities": {}, "clientInfo": {"name": "test", "version": "1.0.0"}}}\n{"jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "notifications/initialized", "params": {}}\n{"jsonrpc": "2.0", "id": 2, "method": "tools/list", "params": {}}' | docker run -i --rm mcp-fdsnws-event-server

run_tests.sh automatically runs:

1. Docker image build

2. Unit tests (offline)

3. MCP protocol smoke test

To also run the live tests against INGV: ./run_tests.sh --integration. This is the recommended way to validate all functionality.

Available tools

The server exposes 6 tools. They all accept an optional datacenter parameter (default: "INGV"). Supported datacenters: INGV, IRIS, EMSC, GFZ, and other FDSN-compliant services.

1. fdsn_query_earthquakes

Search seismic events with flexible filters. With no parameters it returns today's events.

Parameters (all optional):

• starttime / endtime: time window (ISO format: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS). Default: today 00:00:00–23:59:59 UTC

• updatedafter: only events updated after this date/time

• minmag / maxmag: magnitude range

• mindepth / maxdepth: depth range (in km, the FDSN query-parameter unit)

• minlat / maxlat / minlon / maxlon: geographic bounding box

• latitude / longitude / minradiuskm / maxradiuskm: radial search

• limit: maximum number of events (default: 100, max: 1000)

• offset: 1-based index of the first event (default: 1), to paginate together with limit

• orderby: sort order — time (default, most recent first), time-asc, magnitude, magnitude-asc

• datacenter: FDSN datacenter to query (default: "INGV", overridable)

Note: the bounding-box parameters and the radial-search parameters are mutually exclusive.

Output: a compact tabular result (columns + rows, one row per event with the preferred origin/magnitude; depth in km) plus a pagination block (returned_count, has_more, next_offset). For the full detail of a single event, use the *_by_id tools (complete QuakeML, depth in meters).

Examples:

// Today's events (default)
{}

// Significant events (M>=4.0) over the last week
{"minmag": 4.0, "starttime": "2025-07-08T00:00:00", "limit": 50}

// Specific geographic area (Central Italy)
{"minlat": 41.0, "maxlat": 43.0, "minlon": 12.0, "maxlon": 15.0, "minmag": 2.0}

// Radial search (50 km around Rome)
{"latitude": 41.9, "longitude": 12.5, "maxradiuskm": 50}

// Query IRIS instead of INGV
{"minmag": 5.0, "starttime": "2025-01-01T00:00:00", "datacenter": "IRIS"}

2. fdsn_get_earthquake_by_id

Returns the basic information for a single event: preferred origin, preferred magnitude, station magnitudes, and amplitudes.

Parameters:

• eventid (required): event ID (integer)

• datacenter (optional): default "INGV"

3. fdsn_get_arrivals_by_id

Returns all seismic phase arrivals for an event, with the associated picks (station, arrival time, phase). Useful to know which stations recorded the event.

Parameters:

• eventid (required): event ID (integer)

• datacenter (optional): default "INGV"

4. fdsn_get_allmagnitudes_by_id

Returns all magnitude solutions computed for an event (ML, Mw, Mb, Md, etc.), indicating which one is preferred. Useful for comparing magnitude types or agencies.

Parameters:

• eventid (required): event ID (integer)

• datacenter (optional): default "INGV"

5. fdsn_get_allorigins_by_id

Returns all origin solutions (hypocenter locations) for an event, indicating which one is preferred. Useful to compare locations computed by different agencies.

Parameters:

• eventid (required): event ID (integer)

• datacenter (optional): default "INGV"

6. fdsn_get_focalmechanism_by_id

Returns the focal mechanisms and moment tensors for an event: nodal planes (strike, dip, rake), principal axes (T, P, N), and moment tensor components.

Parameters:

• eventid (required): event ID (integer)

• datacenter (optional): default "INGV"

MCP client configuration

To use this server with an MCP client (such as Claude Desktop), add the following configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fdsnws-event": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": ["run", "-i", "--rm", "ingv/mcp-fdsnws-event"]
    }
  }
}

Example queries

Today's events

"Show me today's earthquakes in Italy"

Significant events

"What were the strongest earthquakes of the last week?"

Events in a specific region

"Find earthquakes with magnitude above 3.0 in central Italy over the last 30 days"

Development

Project structure

mcp-fdsnws-event/
├── src/fdsnws_event_server/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── server.py          # MCP server (FastMCP tool definitions)
│   ├── models.py          # Pydantic input validation models
│   └── obspy_client.py    # FDSN format=text query + ObsPy QuakeML→JSON detail
├── tests/                 # pytest: unit (offline) + integration (live)
│   ├── fixtures/          # Real FDSN format=text responses
│   ├── unit/              # Parser, query, models (network mocked)
│   ├── integration/       # Live INGV tests (@pytest.mark.integration)
│   └── README.md          # How to run the tests
├── pyproject.toml         # Python configuration
├── Dockerfile             # Docker container
├── run_tests.sh           # Full test suite
└── README.md

Local testing

# Install dependencies (with dev extras for pytest)
pip install -e ".[dev]"

# Run the tests
pytest                 # unit (offline, default)
pytest -m integration  # live tests against INGV (network required)

Test details and conventions in tests/README.md.

FDSN API

The server queries any FDSN-compliant datacenter:

• INGV (default): https://webservices.ingv.it/fdsnws/event/1/query

• IRIS: https://service.iris.edu/fdsnws/event/1/query

• EMSC: https://www.seismicportal.eu/fdsnws/event/1/query

• GFZ: https://geofon.gfz-potsdam.de/fdsnws/event/1/query

• Format: search via format=text (tabular); detail via QuakeML (XML) → JSON

• Documentation: FDSNWS Event API

OpenWebUI integration (mcpo)

OpenWebUI talks to MCP servers through mcpo, a proxy that exposes an MCP server as an OpenAPI/REST endpoint. This repository ships an mcpo wrapper that runs the server directly (no docker-in-docker, no Docker socket mount): see Dockerfile.mcpo and compose.mcpo.yml.

Run

Pull and run the published mcpo image (recommended):

docker pull ingv/mcp-fdsnws-event:latest-mcpo
docker run -d -p 8000:8000 --name mcp-fdsnws-event_mcpo ingv/mcp-fdsnws-event:latest-mcpo

Or build it locally (for development):

docker build -t ingv/mcp-fdsnws-event .              # base image
docker compose -f compose.mcpo.yml up -d --build     # mcpo wrapper on :8000

This exposes:

• OpenAPI spec: http://<host>:8000/openapi.json

• Swagger UI: http://<host>:8000/docs

• One endpoint per tool, e.g. POST http://<host>:8000/fdsn_query_earthquakes

Connect OpenWebUI

In OpenWebUI go to Settings → Tools (or Admin → Settings → Tools) and add the URL http://<host>:8000.

• If OpenWebUI itself runs in Docker, localhost:8000 from inside its container will not reach the host. Use http://host.docker.internal:8000 (Docker Desktop) or the host LAN IP, or put both services on the same Docker network.

• Securing the endpoint: by default mcpo is exposed without authentication. To protect it, uncomment the command: line in compose.mcpo.yml to add --api-key "<your-key>", then set the same key in OpenWebUI.

The wrapper image bundles mcpo and the server in a single image and runs mcpo ... -- python -m fdsnws_event_server.server, so it does not mount the Docker socket or spawn nested containers.

Validating tool-call reliability (A/B harness)

When a client model loses an identifier across turns it may invent one — e.g. calling fdsn_get_arrivals_by_id with a placeholder eventid (123456) instead of the EventID returned by a prior fdsn_query_earthquakes. The server guards against this with a three-state by-id contract (found / message, see docs/adr/0006), but the behaviour itself lives in the OpenWebUI ↔ model loop and is best measured empirically.

tests/ab/eventid_hallucination_ab.py is a standalone A/B harness (not run by pytest) that replays the failing conversation against a live model through the OpenWebUI OpenAI-compatible API and reports how often the model passes the correct eventid vs an invented one. It takes the model and base URL as arguments:

export OPENWEBUI_API_KEY=sk-...        # OpenWebUI: Settings → Account → API Keys
python tests/ab/eventid_hallucination_ab.py \
    --base-url http://<host>:8080 \
    --model <model-id-as-listed-in-openwebui> \
    --repeat 10 --variant both --temperature 0.7

It fails fast if --model is not present on the instance, and compares two tool descriptions (baseline vs fixed) so you can attribute any delta to the server-side wording. Use it to check a new model, or to confirm that an OpenWebUI configuration change (e.g. Native function calling) actually fixes id reuse.

License

This project is released under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later (AGPL-3.0-or-later). See the LICENSE file for the full text.

Authors

See AUTHORS.md.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please:

1. Fork the repository

2. Create a feature branch off main

3. Commit your changes (see Conventional Commits)

4. Open a Pull Request against main

By contributing you agree that your contributions are licensed under the AGPL-3.0-or-later license of this project.

Support

For problems or questions, open an issue in the GitHub repository.