artic

The Art Institute of Chicago MCP Server provides AI-friendly access to the Art Institute of Chicago Collection through a set of dedicated tools. These tools enable models to search artworks by title, fetch detailed information about a specific artwork, perform full-text searches across metadata, find artists, locate artworks by a given artist, and search by medium. A special art-gallery prompt is also available to generate an interactive gallery visualization for a chosen artist. Each tool returns structured data, including titles, IDs, descriptions, and, when available, image data or references, making it straightforward to incorporate into reasoning and planning workflows.

To use the tools, interact with the server’s endpoints using the tool names described in the Features list (search-by-title, get-artwork-by-id, full-text-search, search-for-artist, get-artwork-by-artist, search-by-medium, and art-gallery). For example, a model can request artworks by a specific title, retrieve a piece by its ID to obtain full metadata and image information, or run a full-text search to discover artworks related to a broader query. The art-gallery prompt helps generate a ready-to-render HTML gallery for a given artist, useful for visualization steps in an analytics or creative workflow.

Prerequisites:

• Node.js (LTS version) installed on your system
• Git (optional, for cloning the repository)

Installation steps:

1. Clone the repository (replace with the actual source URL if different): git clone https://github.com/mikechao/artic-mcp.git cd artic-mcp

2. Install dependencies: npm install

3. Configure environment variables if needed (see additional_notes for details). Create a .env file at the project root if required by your deployment.

4. Start the MCP server locally: node server.js

5. (Optional) If you are deploying with a process manager, ensure the startup script uses the same entry point (server.js) and that environment variables are loaded in the deployment environment.

Notes and tips:

• If the server requires API keys or access tokens for the Art Institute of Chicago API, set them in environment variables (e.g., ARTIC_API_KEY) as described in your deployment environment. The README does not specify keys, so verify if authentication is needed in your deployment.
• The tools return structured results with fields like Title, Artwork ID, Description, and metadata. Use these fields to guide reasoning or to render UI components in downstream applications.
• If you encounter rate limits or API availability issues from the Art Institute of Chicago, consider implementing client-side caching or request backoff strategies in your consuming model.
• Ensure your hosting environment exposes the server on the expected port and that any firewall rules or reverse proxies allow traffic to the MCP gateway.