Skip to main content
Glama
cyanheads

wikidata-mcp-server

by cyanheads

Version License Docker MCP SDK npm TypeScript Bun

Install in Claude Desktop Install in Cursor Install in VS Code

Framework

Public Hosted Server: https://wikidata.caseyjhand.com/mcp


Tools

7 tools for working with Wikidata's knowledge graph:

Tool

Description

wikidata_search_entities

Search for items or properties by text query, returning QIDs/PIDs with labels, descriptions, and match metadata

wikidata_get_entity

Fetch a full entity by QID or PID with optional field and language filtering

wikidata_get_labels

Batch-resolve up to 50 QIDs or PIDs to human-readable labels and descriptions

wikidata_get_statements

Fetch property claims for an entity with qualifier detail and QID label resolution

wikidata_get_sitelinks

Fetch Wikipedia and Wikimedia project article URLs for a Wikidata item

wikidata_sparql_query

Execute a SPARQL SELECT query against the Wikidata Query Service

wikidata_resolve_external_id

Look up a Wikidata entity by an external identifier (DOI, PubMed ID, ORCID, OpenAlex ID, etc.)

wikidata_search_entities

Search Wikidata for items or properties by text query.

  • Searches labels, aliases, and descriptions

  • type="item" for real-world concepts (people, places, works); type="property" for predicate P-IDs

  • Language-aware results (BCP 47 language codes)

  • Offset-based pagination, up to 50 results per call

  • Returns match metadata indicating whether the hit was on a label or alias


wikidata_get_entity

Fetch a Wikidata entity by QID or PID with field selection.

  • Q-IDs (e.g. Q76) fetch items; P-IDs (e.g. P31) fetch properties — endpoint routing is automatic

  • fields parameter selects labels, descriptions, aliases, statements, or sitelinks

  • fields narrows the upstream fetch, not just the response — Q76 is 344,114 bytes whole, 6,703 for labels alone

  • languages parameter filters multilingual maps to specific language codes, client-side (the entity endpoint takes no language parameter)

  • An entity too large to inline returns a field-category outline with byte sizes instead of the data — follow its retrieval_notice: it names a literal fields set already measured to fit (category sizes are additive, so requesting every name listed would overflow again), defers the remainder to a further call, and redirects a category too large to deliver whole (statements or sitelinks on a major item) to the tool that can narrow it


wikidata_get_labels

Batch-resolve QIDs/PIDs to human-readable labels and descriptions.

  • Up to 50 IDs per call, batched via the MediaWiki wbgetentities API

  • Supports multiple language codes per request

  • Reports found count and notFound IDs for partial-result handling

  • Designed for the common agent pattern: run a SPARQL query, then humanize the QID results


wikidata_get_statements

Fetch property claims for a Wikidata entity with full qualifier and reference detail.

  • properties parameter fetches only specific P-IDs — omit to return all statements

  • Value QIDs are resolved to human-readable labels by default via a batched label call

  • Set resolve_labels=false for raw QIDs only (faster, smaller payload)

  • A statement set too large to inline returns an outline of the available P-IDs with byte sizes, largest first, instead of the statements — re-call with properties for the ones you need (unfiltered, Q30 carries 467 properties across 1,717 statements)

  • Preferred-rank statements represent the most current values

  • Designed for fact verification: "what does Wikidata say about this entity's {property}?"


Fetch Wikipedia and Wikimedia project article URLs for a Wikidata item.

  • Maps site codes (e.g., enwiki) to article titles and URLs

  • sites parameter filters to specific site codes

  • wikis_only=true returns only Wikipedia links (excludes Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikisource, etc.)

  • Major items can have 300+ sitelinks across languages

  • Only Q-IDs (items) have sitelinks — P-IDs are not supported


wikidata_sparql_query

Execute a SPARQL SELECT query against the Wikidata Query Service (Blazegraph).

  • Full graph power: multi-hop traversals, aggregations, subqueries, OPTIONAL, FILTER, UNION, BIND

  • Standard Wikidata prefixes (wd:, wdt:, p:, ps:, pq:, wikibase:, bd:) are auto-injected

  • wikibase:label SERVICE auto-injected when language is set and the query uses ?<var>Label variables

  • Results in SPARQL 1.1 JSON format: each binding is { type, value, "xml:lang"? }

  • Hard server timeout is 60s; client-side timeout parameter (1–55s) applies earlier

  • Rate-limited at 60 requests/min and 5 concurrent requests per IP


wikidata_resolve_external_id

Look up a Wikidata entity by an external identifier.

  • Common use cases: CrossRef DOI → QID (P356), PubMed PMID → QID (P698), ORCID → author QID (P496), OpenAlex ID → entity QID (P10283), IMDb ID (P345)

  • Automatic value normalization: surrounding whitespace trimmed, resolver URL prefixes stripped (https://doi.org/, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/, https://orcid.org/), DOIs uppercased, PMID prefixes stripped, ORCID hyphens normalized

  • The property's data type must be external-id — item-valued or media properties (e.g. P31, P18) are rejected rather than returning an empty match

  • Returns match=null when not found (the Query Service lags the live wiki, so a null is not proof of absence)

  • Returns multipleMatches when a Wikidata data integrity issue causes more than one entity to claim the same external ID

  • Designed for cross-server joins with pubmed-mcp-server, crossref-mcp-server, and openalex-mcp-server

Resource

Type

Name

Description

Resource

wikidata://entity/{id}

Compact markdown summary of a Wikidata entity — labels, English description, instance-of, Wikipedia link, image, and statement count

All resource data is also reachable via tools.

Features

Built on @cyanheads/mcp-ts-core:

  • Declarative tool definitions — single file per tool, framework handles registration and validation

  • Unified error handling across all tools

  • Pluggable auth (none, jwt, oauth)

  • Swappable storage backends: in-memory, filesystem, Supabase, Cloudflare KV/R2/D1

  • Structured logging with optional OpenTelemetry tracing

  • Runs locally (stdio/HTTP) from the same codebase

Wikidata-specific:

  • Wikidata REST API v1 for entity and statement fetches — no SPARQL overhead for lookup operations

  • MediaWiki wbgetentities API for efficient batch label resolution

  • Wikidata Query Service (Blazegraph) for SPARQL with auto-injected prefix headers and label SERVICE

  • Configurable User-Agent per Wikimedia policy

  • Separate timeout configuration for REST and SPARQL endpoints

Agent-friendly output:

  • wikidata_get_labels designed to follow SPARQL result sets — run the query, then humanize in one call

  • wikidata_resolve_external_id handles DOI/PMID/ORCID normalization transparently, with multipleMatches for data integrity edge cases

  • wikidata_get_statements resolves QID values to labels in the same call, with resolve_labels=false escape hatch for raw payloads

  • All tools echo input parameters in the response for traceability

Getting started

Self-Hosted / Local

Add the following to your MCP client configuration file.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "wikidata-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "bunx",
      "args": ["@cyanheads/wikidata-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with npx (no Bun required):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "wikidata-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@cyanheads/wikidata-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with Docker:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "wikidata-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "docker",
      "args": ["run", "-i", "--rm", "-e", "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=stdio", "ghcr.io/cyanheads/wikidata-mcp-server:latest"]
    }
  }
}

For Streamable HTTP, set the transport and start the server:

MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=http MCP_HTTP_PORT=3010 bun run start:http
# Server listens at http://localhost:3010/mcp

Prerequisites

Installation

  1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/cyanheads/wikidata-mcp-server.git
  1. Navigate into the directory:

cd wikidata-mcp-server
  1. Install dependencies:

bun install

Configuration

All configuration is validated at startup via Zod schemas. Key environment variables:

Variable

Description

Default

MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE

Transport: stdio or http

stdio

MCP_HTTP_PORT

HTTP server port

3010

MCP_HTTP_ENDPOINT_PATH

HTTP endpoint path where the MCP server is mounted

/mcp

MCP_PUBLIC_URL

Public origin override for TLS-terminating reverse-proxy deployments

none

MCP_AUTH_MODE

Authentication: none, jwt, or oauth

none

MCP_SESSION_MODE

HTTP session mode: stateful, stateless, or auto. The framework's auto default resolves to stateful; this server explicitly selects stateless.

stateless

MCP_LOG_LEVEL

Log level (debug, info, notice, warning, error)

info

MCP_GC_PRESSURE_INTERVAL_MS

Opt-in Bun-only forced-GC interval (ms). Try 60000 if heap growth is observed under HTTP load.

0 (disabled)

LOGS_DIR

Directory for log files (Node.js only)

<project-root>/logs

STORAGE_PROVIDER_TYPE

Storage backend: in-memory, filesystem, supabase, cloudflare-kv/r2/d1

in-memory

WIKIDATA_USER_AGENT

User-Agent string for Wikimedia requests (policy requires a descriptive value)

wikidata-mcp-server/0.1 (https://github.com/cyanheads/wikidata-mcp-server)

WIKIDATA_SPARQL_TIMEOUT_MS

Max wait for a SPARQL response in ms

55000

WIKIDATA_REST_TIMEOUT_MS

Max wait for REST API responses in ms

10000

OTEL_ENABLED

Enable OpenTelemetry

false

Running the server

Local development

  • Build and run the production version:

    # One-time build
    bun run rebuild
    
    # Run the built server
    bun run start:http
    # or
    bun run start:stdio
  • Run checks and tests:

    bun run devcheck  # Lints, formats, type-checks, and more
    bun run test      # Runs the test suite

Project structure

Directory

Purpose

src/mcp-server/tools

Tool definitions (*.tool.ts). Seven tools for entity lookup, statements, sitelinks, SPARQL, and external ID resolution.

src/mcp-server/resources

Resource definitions. Entity summary resource.

src/services/wikidata

Wikidata service layer — REST API client, SPARQL client, statement normalization, types.

src/config

Server-specific environment variable parsing and validation with Zod.

tests/

Unit and integration tests, mirroring the src/ structure.

Development guide

See CLAUDE.md for development guidelines and architectural rules. The short version:

  • Handlers throw, framework catches — no try/catch in tool logic

  • Use ctx.log for logging, ctx.state for storage

  • Register new tools and resources in the createApp() arrays

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Run checks and tests before submitting:

bun run devcheck
bun run test

License

Apache-2.0 — see LICENSE for details.