@pipeworx/rdap

RDAP MCP — Registration Data Access Protocol queries for domains, IPs, ASNs and nameservers. The structured-JSON successor to WHOIS, answered by the registry's own service. Keyless.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1683+ live data sources.

Tools

• domain(name | domain, base?) — domain registration record: registrar, registration/expiry dates, nameservers, status. A registry 404 is an answer, not an error — it comes back as {registered: false}, which is what makes availability sweeps work.

• ip(address | ip) — IP / netblock allocation record

• asn(number) — ASN allocation record

• entity(handle, base?) — registry entity by handle (e.g. registrant id)

• nameserver(host, base?) — nameserver (glue) record, where the registry supports it

Related MCP server: Domain Checker

Auth

None. Every endpoint queried is a public registry RDAP service.

TLD coverage — and the gap in IANA's bootstrap

Server discovery normally goes through IANA's RDAP bootstrap (https://data.iana.org/rdap/dns.json, cached 24h). That file is incomplete. As of publication 2026-07-23 it lists 1,200 of the 1,438 delegated TLDs; the 238 it omits are almost entirely ccTLDs that never registered their RDAP endpoint with IANA. Measured against the Majestic Million on 2026-08-30, those 238 TLDs carry 23.4% of the world's most-linked domains — including .io, .de, .us, .me and .ru.

So the pack carries FALLBACK_BASES (see src/index.ts): registry RDAP endpoints for TLDs IANA omits. IANA is still consulted first, so the map goes quiet on its own the day a registry is added upstream. Currently covered beyond IANA:

Adding a TLD to that map — read this first. Verify by fetching <base>/domain/<a-name-you-know-is-REGISTERED> and requiring HTTP 200 with a real record. rdap.identitydigital.services returns a well-formed RDAP 404 for TLDs it does not serve, so a 404 there is indistinguishable from "this domain is unregistered". A wrong base URL therefore does not error — it reports every registered domain in that TLD as available. That is the failure this pack is built to avoid.

Many ccTLDs run no public RDAP service at all. Probed 2026-08-30, the conventional rdap.* hostnames for .ru, .it, .eu, .se and .co do not resolve (NXDOMAIN), so there is nothing to add to the map for them. For those, domain returns {found: false, reason: "tld_not_in_iana_bootstrap"} with a message saying the gap is IANA's rather than ours, plus a hint: pass the registry's own endpoint as base if you know it, otherwise use that registry's WHOIS page. It deliberately does not throw — an upstream registry gap is not a Pipeworx defect and should not book as one.

Data sources

• IANA RDAP bootstrap: https://data.iana.org/rdap/dns.json (+ ipv4, ipv6, asn)

• IANA delegated-TLD list: https://data.iana.org/TLD/tlds-alpha-by-domain.txt

• Individual RIR / registry RDAP servers reached via the above

Quick Start

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

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

What this endpoint actually serves

tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/rdap/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 1683+ 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/rdap_domain \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"name":"example.com"}'

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

Standalone (no gateway account)

This package also runs as a local stdio MCP server — no Pipeworx account, no gateway round-trip:

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

Or run it directly to confirm it starts:

npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-rdap

It speaks MCP over stdin/stdout and answers initialize/tools/list/tools/call for only this pack's tools — none of the shared meta-tools the gateway connection above adds. Same source, same tools, no ask_pipeworx routing.

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 Rdap data" })

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

More

• Docs and guides

• pipeworx.io

License

MIT