World Bank Indicators MCP Server

Read-only Model Context Protocol server for country and economic data from the World Bank Indicators API. No API key or credentials are required. This independent project is not affiliated with or endorsed by the World Bank Group.

Tools

Every tool has bounded input and structured output schemas plus read-only MCP annotations. HTTP, network, timeout, and malformed-response failures return bounded tool errors without writing protocol noise to stdout.

Requirements

• Node.js 20 or newer.

• Network access to https://api.worldbank.org.

Run With npx

After npm publication, run the pinned package without cloning:

npx -y world-bank-indicators-mcp@0.1.0

The process is a stdio MCP server. Direct terminal use waits silently for JSON-RPC input.

For source development after GitHub publication:

git clone https://github.com/ryanngit/world-bank-indicators-mcp.git
cd world-bank-indicators-mcp
npm ci
npm run verify
npm run build
node .\dist\src\index.js

Claude Desktop

Add this entry to Claude Desktop configuration. It uses the future pinned npm release and needs no local source path or environment variables.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "world-bank-indicators": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "world-bank-indicators-mcp@0.1.0"]
    }
  }
}

Configuration locations:

• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Save the file and restart Claude Desktop. On Windows, if Claude cannot resolve npx, use "command": "cmd" and prepend "/c", "npx" to args.

Examples

Resolve country codes:

{
  "name": "find_countries",
  "arguments": {
    "query": "united",
    "limit": 10
  }
}

Compare latest reported GDP values:

{
  "name": "compare_countries",
  "arguments": {
    "countries": ["CAN", "MEX", "USA"],
    "indicator": "NY.GDP.MKTP.CD"
  }
}

Read a bounded time series page:

{
  "name": "get_indicator_data",
  "arguments": {
    "countries": ["IND", "CHN"],
    "indicator": "SP.POP.TOTL",
    "startYear": 2015,
    "endYear": 2023,
    "page": 1,
    "pageSize": 100
  }
}

get_indicator_data returns page, pages, perPage, and total metadata. Use page to retrieve later result pages.

Development

npm run typecheck
npm test
npm run verify
npm audit --audit-level=high
npm pack --dry-run --json

Tests use Node's built-in test runner and deterministic fetch fixtures. They do not require live World Bank access. Package tests guard repository and license metadata against unresolved publication markers.

For an optional local protocol check with mcp-smoke:

git clone --branch v0.1.0 --depth 1 https://github.com/ryanngit/mcp-smoke.git .mcp-smoke
python .\.mcp-smoke\mcp_smoke.py check --out .\mcp-smoke-out --server-name world-bank-indicators --overwrite -- node .\dist\src\index.js

Data Attribution

Data and indicator metadata come from the World Bank Indicators API. The software license in this repository does not relicense World Bank data. Review the World Bank dataset terms and each indicator's source metadata before redistribution or production use.

Limitations

• Live values can be revised, delayed, or absent for some country-year pairs.

• Latest non-empty observations can come from different years by country.

• Requests have a 10-second full-response timeout and no retry or cache layer.

• find_countries excludes aggregate regions by default; set includeAggregates to include them.

• Inputs allow at most 20 countries, 100 years per request, 1,000 records per page, and page numbers through 10,000.

• get_country_profile always returns five fixed metrics. Missing values use status: "missing" with null year and value.

Support

Search or open a reproducible report in GitHub Issues. Include server version, Node.js version, tool name, sanitized input, and error text. Do not include credentials or private conversation content.

License

MIT. Copyright (c) 2026 ryanngit.