Vessel Traffic MCP

Vessel Traffic MCP

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Vessel tracking and shipping schedules for AI agents.

Vessel Traffic MCP is a read-only Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for vessel identity lookup, AIS-style positions, tracks, port calls, carrier schedules, vessel schedules, and delay heuristics. It gives Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, MCP Inspector, and other MCP clients one normalized maritime-data tool surface.

Use it when an agent needs to:

• search/fetch vessel context through generic connector-style MCP tools;
• resolve a vessel from a name, MMSI, IMO, callsign, or bill-of-lading text;
• ask where a vessel is, where it has been, or which vessels are in an area;
• search container-shipping schedules by port pair or vessel;
• return the original provider and source URL with every live/public result;
• test maritime workflows safely before buying paid AIS or schedule APIs.

The project does not bypass provider terms, paywalls, CAPTCHA, or access controls. Commercial providers are Bring Your Own Key (BYOK), the default test path is fixture-only, and this is not a navigation product.

Open source under the MIT license. Pre-1.0; APIs and tool surfaces may change.

Contents

• Install In An MCP Client
• Agent Discovery Page
• What It Exposes
• Provider Model
• Responsible Use And Third-Party Rights
• Help Spread
• From Source
• Remote HTTP Setup
• Current Distribution
• Star History
• Shared Reference

Install In An MCP Client

For Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Codex CLI, Cursor, VS Code, or any stdio MCP client, use the npm package:

{

"mcpServers": { "vessel-traffic-mcp": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@tools-mcp/vessel-traffic-mcp"], "env": { "VESSEL_MCP_TRANSPORT": "stdio", "VESSEL_MCP_ENABLE_PUBLIC_PROVIDERS": "myshiptracking,tradlinx,aisfriends" } } } }

Then restart the client and try:

Find the current position of EVER GIVEN. Include source.provider and source.landingUrl.

Search carrier schedules from KRPUS to NLRTM. Include the source URL.

Full client setup lives in docs/runbooks/clients.md, and Codex details live in docs/runbooks/codex.md. Source-checkout config snippets are in Shared MCP Config Snippets. Marketplace and AI-client submission helpers live in llms-install.md, LAUNCHGUIDE.md, and assets/logo-400.png.

Agent Discovery Page

The public landing page for assistant-agent search and install snippets is:

https://tools-mcp.github.io/vessel-traffic-mcp/

Use that URL when sharing the project as a vessel AIS MCP, ship tracking MCP, ChatGPT MCP, Codex MCP, Claude MCP, or Gemini MCP server. The page includes a golden prompt for the EVER GIVEN scenario and client snippets for local stdio and remote Streamable HTTP setup.

Assistant services do not automatically discover arbitrary MCP servers. The operator must connect this MCP first; after that, the tool descriptions, search/fetch wrappers, and vessel-specific tools give the agent a clear path from a ship-name prompt to source-attributed results.

What It Exposes

Every live or public-provider response must expose provenance: source.provider and source.landingUrl. The project is designed to route users back to the original service, not to hide or rebrand the data source.

Provider Model

Use the provider_onboarding MCP tool to inspect provider signup URLs, required env vars, configured profile status, and validation steps. It is read-only and never creates accounts, accepts terms, solves CAPTCHA, completes email verification, sets payment details, or issues API keys.

Responsible Use And Third-Party Rights

This project is provided as open-source infrastructure for public-interest interoperability, workflow testing, and source-attributed maritime data access. It does not grant any right to copy, redistribute, rebrand, bypass, or misuse third-party services, databases, maps, trademarks, copyrighted material, API responses, or provider content.

Users are responsible for how they configure and operate the software, including their compliance with applicable law, provider terms, account permissions, rate limits, data licenses, and internal company policies. Do not use this project to bypass authentication, paywalls, CAPTCHA, access controls, robots policies, or commercial restrictions.

The authors and contributors respect the rights and terms of all referenced services and data providers. Live and public-provider responses are designed to preserve attribution through source.provider and source.landingUrl and to route users back to the original source. If a rights holder, service operator, or affected party reports a substantiated concern, the maintainers will review it promptly and, where appropriate, modify, disable, or remove the affected adapter, documentation, fixture, or reference.

The software is provided under the MIT license, without warranty. Nothing in this README is legal advice or a substitute for reviewing the terms that apply to your own use case.

Help Spread

If this could help someone building MCP tools, shipping/logistics software, or AI workflows around maritime data, share the repository and ask for real workflow feedback. A copy/paste sharing kit lives in docs/marketing/help-us-spread.md.

Useful help includes trying the npm install, posting a tailored community write-up, requesting a provider adapter, or explaining a real forwarding, trade, port-call, vessel ETA, or carrier-schedule workflow.

From Source

git clone https://github.com/tools-mcp/vessel-traffic-mcp.git

cd vessel-traffic-mcp npm ci npm run lint npm test npm run build VESSEL_MCP_TRANSPORT=stdio \ VESSEL_MCP_ENABLE_PUBLIC_PROVIDERS=myshiptracking,tradlinx,aisfriends \ npm start

The default verification gate uses sanitized fixtures only. It does not call paid or live providers and does not require API keys, accounts, or network access.

For a local visual check with ship-name input and a map:

npm run start:map

Open http://127.0.0.1:8787 and search EVER GIVEN or MMSI 353136000.

Remote HTTP Setup

For remote MCP clients, run Streamable HTTP at /mcp with public /health:

export VESSEL_MCP_TRANSPORT=http

export VESSEL_MCP_HTTP_HOST=127.0.0.1 export VESSEL_MCP_HTTP_PORT=8765 export VESSEL_MCP_AUTH_TOKEN=" " npm run start:http

curl -sf "http://127.0.0.1:8765/health"

MCP requests require Authorization: Bearer when VESSEL_MCP_AUTH_TOKEN is set. See docs/runbooks/streamable-http-server.md and docs/runbooks/deployment-https.md.

Current Distribution

| Smithery | HTTPS endpoint pending | Nee