CARTO MCP Server
The CARTO MCP Server is the fastest way to put the CARTO platform inside your AI assistant. Through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), agents like Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini Enterprise, and Microsoft Copilot Studio can work with your CARTO account directly in the conversation: explore connected data warehouses, create and edit Builder maps, author and run Workflows, render maps inline, and reach organization admin — all in natural language, over a single URL.
What your agent can do
Once connected, your agent has a broad set of CARTO tools available. It picks the right one from your natural-language request — you don't need to know tool names.
Explore data
List connections, browse and search warehouse tables, inspect column distributions, and locate named sources and saved maps.
Create & edit maps
Build a Builder map from a table or SQL query, restyle layers, add widgets and popups, set privacy, and open the result — reading and updating existing maps in place.
Build & run workflows
Author an analytical workflow (filter, spatial join, group-by, enrich), validate it, run it in sync or async mode, and schedule it.
Query & analyze
Run spatial SQL, geocode addresses, compute isolines and routes, and enrich with the Data Observatory.
Import & export
Bring geospatial files into the warehouse, export results back out, and move data between connections.
Manage your workspace
Work with connections, credentials, named sources, and projects — and, for admins, users, org settings, and activity data.
Full per-tool documentation is in the MCP Tools Reference. Your team extends this catalog by publishing any Workflow as an MCP tool.
Before you start: enable CARTO AI
The MCP Server lives under CARTO AI, so an Organization Admin must have CARTO AI enabled for your org first. It's the organization-wide master switch in Settings > CARTO AI — when it's off, no AI capability (the MCP Server included) is available to anyone in the org. See CARTO AI for how to turn it on. If the Developers > Workflow API & MCP Server page below is missing or empty, this is the first thing to check.
Get your MCP Server URL
Find the MCP Server URL in your CARTO Workspace under Developers > Workflow API & MCP Server (in the CARTO AI section). It follows this pattern:
If your organization signs in to CARTO through single sign-on (SSO), use the separate SSO login URL shown below the standard one. It routes the interactive login through your identity provider, so members authenticate with their SSO credentials:
Copy the URL from the Workspace rather than assembling it by hand — this is the most common setup mistake. On self-hosted and dedicated deployments the path is https://<your-domain>/api/mcp/<account_id> (note the /api/ prefix); a wrong path returns a bare 405 Not Allowed.
Choose how to authenticate
How you authenticate decides how much of CARTO your agent can use. This is the most important setup decision.
Interactive clients — Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Snowflake, Databricks
The full tool surface, including creating and editing maps, authoring workflows, and admin. Each person signs in as themselves.
Unattended, service-to-service access
The full surface, with no interactive login, via an M2M OAuth client.
Quick read-and-discovery setups, and hosts that only accept a static token (Oracle)
A read-and-discovery subset that depends on the token's Allowed APIs — browse data, run SQL, poll (not start) Workflow runs, search the Data Observatory. No map or Workflow authoring, no admin.
Rule of thumb: if the agent should do things — build maps, author workflows, administer the org — use OAuth. If it only needs to look at things, an API Access Token is a quick start.
Claude and Claude Code connect with just the URL — no OAuth client to create, nothing to register. Other clients use a self-service SPA OAuth client. See Connecting with OAuth.
For step-by-step setup on your platform — Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Snowflake, Databricks, Oracle, and coding agents — see Connect your platform.
Available tools
The CARTO MCP Server ships with a catalog of built-in tools, organized by category. Your team adds to it by publishing Workflows as MCP tools. Full per-tool documentation, including every parameter, is in the MCP Tools Reference.
Create, update, validate, read, and render Builder maps.
Create, run, schedule, and inspect Workflows, plus any your team publishes as MCP tools.
Explore connections and tables, run SQL, geocode, route, import/export, and enrich with the Data Observatory.
Manage users, credentials, projects, and activity data.
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