@pipeworx/econdata

US labor and price statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics public API v2 — inflation (CPI-U), the unemployment rate, non-farm payroll employment by industry, and any BLS series by ID.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1863+ live data sources. This is an independent, unofficial integration — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or published by the upstream provider.

Tools

Data arrives newest first — every response says so in observation_order, so you don't have to infer it from the dates. total and returned are always equal here: BLS returns every point in the requested year range, so nothing is truncated.

Every data point carries an ISO date derived from the BLS period code (M01–M12 monthly, Q01–Q04 quarterly, S01/S02 semiannual, A01/M13 annual), so results sort and freshness-check without decoding "M06".

Related MCP server: BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) MCP Server

Auth

Keyless works, at roughly 25 requests per day per IP. A free BLS registration key raises that to 500/day: get one at https://data.bls.gov/registrationEngine/. The gateway supplies a platform key (PLATFORM_BLS_KEY); pass _apiKey only to override it with your own.

Two BLS limits fail differently and the pack distinguishes them, because they used to read alike:

• Per-second burst — BLS returns HTTP 429 "Requests Per Second Limit Exceeded" when concurrent callers land in the same second. The pack retries three times (400 ms, 1200 ms, 2500 ms); only a 429 that survives all three surfaces, as upstream_throttled, saying explicitly that this is not the daily quota and not an exhausted key.

• Daily threshold — arrives as a REQUEST_NOT_PROCESSED body, not an HTTP error. Also surfaced as upstream_throttled, with the registration link.

Data sources

• BLS Public Data API v2 — https://api.bls.gov/publicAPI/v2/timeseries/data/ (docs: https://www.bls.gov/developers/api_signature_v2.htm)

• Series used: CUUR0000SA0 / CUSR0000SA0 (CPI-U, NSA / SA), LNS14000000 (unemployment rate), CES* (Current Employment Statistics by industry)

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "econdata": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/econdata/mcp"
    }
  }
}

What this endpoint actually serves

tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/econdata/mcp returns the tools in the table above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx, discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and is the authoritative answer for a given day.

This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth, connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.

Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipeworx": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1863+ data sources. The only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx reaches all of them from either one.

No MCP client? Call it over HTTP

curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/econdata_get_series \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"series_id":"CUUR0000SA0"}'

No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/econdata_get_series. Find one: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs with {"query":"..."}.

Run it from npm

@pipeworx/mcp-econdata is a local stdio bridge to the Pipeworx gateway: your MCP client starts it with npx, and it forwards every call to the same https://gateway.pipeworx.io/econdata/mcp endpoint shown above. It needs network access; there is no offline mode.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "econdata": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-econdata"]
    }
  }
}

Without a key it calls anonymously, capped at 50 calls a day. A free account raises that to 200 a day: get a key at https://pipeworx.io/signup and add "env": { "PIPEWORX_API_KEY": "<your key>" } to the server entry. The key is sent as a Bearer token, the same way a hosted connection sends it, so calls are metered and billed exactly as they are there.

It lists only this pack's tools by default. Set PIPEWORX_META_TOOLS=1 to also list ask_pipeworx and the other gateway-wide tools.

Behind an HTTPS proxy: Node's built-in fetch does not read HTTPS_PROXY by default. Newer Node releases honour it when NODE_USE_ENV_PROXY=1 is set; check your Node version's documentation.

Using with ask_pipeworx

Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:

ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about Econdata data" })

The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.

More

• Docs and guides

• pipeworx.io

License

MIT