# @pipeworx/japan-places

Facilities in Japan near a point or a named train/subway station — convenience
stores (konbini), restaurants, pharmacies, hospitals, banks, ATMs, hotels and
other places, with distance in metres and coordinates for each result.

Part of [Pipeworx](https://pipeworx.io) — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1870+ live data sources. This is an independent, unofficial integration — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or published by the upstream provider.

## Tools

- `places_near_station(station, category, radius_m?, limit?)` — geocodes a
  Japanese station or place name (e.g. "Shibuya Station, Tokyo") and returns
  nearby facilities matching the category, sorted by distance. Answers
  "convenience stores within 500m of Shibuya station".
- `places_near_point(latitude, longitude, category, radius_m?, limit?)` — same
  search, from coordinates you already have instead of a station name.

`category` accepts plain English/romanized terms (`convenience_store`,
`konbini`, `station`, `eki`, `hospital`, `byouin`, `pharmacy`, `yakkyoku`,
`restaurant`, `izakaya`, `cafe`, `supermarket`, `bank`, `atm`, `hotel`,
`post_office`, `toilet`, `parking`, `school`, `temple`, `shrine`, `park`) or an
exact OpenStreetMap tag (`shop=bakery`).

## Auth

Keyless.

## Data sources

- OpenStreetMap contributors — place and point-of-interest tags (shops,
  amenities, railway stations) for Japan, served live through the public
  Overpass query service. Data is © OpenStreetMap contributors, licensed
  **ODbL 1.0**: attribution is required and carried in every response's
  `source` field and here. See https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright for
  the full terms. This pack sends one live query per call and stores nothing
  — a proxy of the public service, not a copy of the dataset (CLAUDE.md:
  "proxying is not redistribution").
- OpenStreetMap contributors — the public Nominatim geocoding service, used
  only to resolve a station/place NAME to coordinates (never to look up
  arbitrary addresses in bulk). Usage is kept to the documented public-policy
  shape: identified User-Agent, one request per call, no caching of the
  dataset itself. See https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/nominatim/
  for the policy this pack follows.

## Notes

- This is a Japan-branded, discoverability-focused entry point over the same
  public OpenStreetMap query service the general-purpose `overpass` pack also
  uses (shared/src/overpass.ts handles host failover for both). It exists
  because a bare "Overpass" or "OSM" name and description do not surface for
  Japan-phrased questions ("convenience stores near Shibuya station") — see
  fleet #4092, where that exact question mis-routed to a Mexico-only pack and
  came back with a false "no results" instead of failing honestly or finding
  the real answer.
- Station-name geocoding is biased to Japan (`countrycodes=jp`) so common
  station names ("Central Station") do not resolve outside Japan. Adding the
  city disambiguates same-named stations in different cities.
- `distance_m` is a straight-line (haversine) distance from the search center,
  not a walking route distance.
- The public Overpass instances are a small set of volunteer-run servers and
  occasionally all answer slowly or time out at once — this is the upstream
  service, not a Pipeworx fault; the error names which instances were tried.

## Quick Start

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

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "japan-places": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/japan-places/mcp"
    }
  }
}
```

### What this endpoint actually serves

`tools/list` at `https://gateway.pipeworx.io/japan-places/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:

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

Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1870+ 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

```bash
curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/places_near_station \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"station":"Shibuya Station, Tokyo","category":"convenience_store","radius_m":500,"limit":20}'
```

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

## Run it from npm

`@pipeworx/mcp-japan-places` 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/japan-places/mcp` endpoint shown above. It needs network access;
there is no offline mode.

```json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "japan-places": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-japan-places"]
    }
  }
}
```

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 Japan Places data" })
```

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

## More

- [Docs and guides](https://pipeworx.io/docs)
- [pipeworx.io](https://pipeworx.io)

## License

MIT