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Dpla

NPM · @PIPEWORX/MCP-DPLA · 2 COMPONENTS

DPLA — the Digital Public Library of America.

+3 this week 81 Trust /100

Last scanned (3 hours ago)

Scores higher than 68% of npm servers

Category Education and Research

Trust breakdown (7 categories)

How this component scores in each security and reliability category. Every signal is checked automatically from public evidence about the published package, including repeated runs of it in an isolated sandbox, and we only credit what we can confirm. How we score → Why this is hard to score →

Supply Chain Security100
  • No malware found by supply-chain analysis.Pass
  • No known CVEs affecting this package version or its production dependencies.Pass
  • No install/post-install scripts declared.Pass
  • No production dependencies, so there is no dependency health to assess. View diagnostics → Pass
Provenance & Transparency97
  • Source repository is publicly reachable at the declared URL. View diagnostics → Pass
  • Cryptographically verified build provenance (signed, bound to pipeworx-io/mcp-dpla). View diagnostics → Pass
  • Clear OSI-approved license (MIT).Pass
  • Actively maintained (last published 4 days ago).Pass
  • Security-disclosure policy not yet verified: we couldn't inspect the source repository.Unverified
Schema Quality & AI Usability59
  • AI-judged instruction clarity (good).Pass
  • Context-footprint check failed: tool/resource definitions use about 922 tokens (~307/item across 3 items; 3 tools + 0 resources), over budget; trim descriptions and params. See how to fix → Fail
  • Usage-examples check failed: none of the tools include examples. See how to fix → Fail
Stability & Change Management23
  • Stability observed for 7 of 30 days with no destabilising changes; credit accrues until the full window elapses.Partial
Tool Coverage100
  • 100% of tools have a non-trivial description (not blank, and not just the tool's name).Pass
  • 100% of tool parameters carry a description.Pass
Tool Safety100
  • No prompt-injection markers were found in the server instructions, tool names or descriptions we captured.Pass
  • We read all 3 captured tool definition(s), and no name or description among them implies an irreversible operation.Pass
  • An AI judge read all 4 captured unit(s) of tool text and found none that tries to manipulate the model reading it.Pass
Capabilities100
  • Implements a supported MCP spec version (2025-11-25); the latest is 2026-07-28.Pass
Changelog

Every change we have recorded for this component, newest first. Security-relevant changes are always shown. ▲ marks a change for the better, ▼ a change for the worse; unmarked changes are neutral.

  • 5 Nov 26 0
    • Security disclosure: fail → unverified ▼ functional
  • 4 Nov 26 +1

    No change was recorded against any check on this day. Stability & Change Management went from 17 to 20. That category is still filling its 30-day observation window: 5 days of observed history at the previous scan, 6 at this one. The score rises as the window fills, whether or not the server changes.

  • 2 Nov 26 +1

    No change was recorded against any check on this day. Stability & Change Management went from 10 to 13. That category is still filling its 30-day observation window: 3 days of observed history at the previous scan, 4 at this one. The score rises as the window fills, whether or not the server changes.

  • 1 Nov 26 +1
    • Tool safety: pass → unverified ▼ security
    • Stability: Stability not yet verified: we do not have a sandbox capture of the MCP schema this version of the package serves yet. security
    • Capabilities: pass → unverified ▼ functional
    • Tool coverage: 100 → unverified ▼ functional
    • Stability: unverified → 0.10 ▲ functional
    • First check of Schema quality: unverified functional
    • Package version: 0.2.0 → 0.2.1 functional
  • 30 Oct 26 0
    • Security disclosure: unverified → fail ▼ functional
  • 29 Oct 26 78

    First indexed and scored.

Diagnostics

Diagnostic detail from the automated scan of this channel: what the scanner observed at each step, so you can see exactly where a check passed or failed. It is informational only and never changes the trust score.

Captured 5 Nov 2026 · Analysed npm/@pipeworx/mcp-dpla@0.2.1

Provenance Verified

A signed build attestation was found and verified, binding this exact artifact to the source repository it claims to come from.

Result Verified
Ecosystem npm
Reason Verified
Discovered via Registry attestation endpoint
Source repo pipeworx-io/mcp-dpla
Certificate issuer https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com
Certificate SAN https://github.com/pipeworx-io/mcp-dpla/.github/workflows/publish.yml@refs/heads/main
Rekor log index 3617566351
Predicate type SLSA build provenance https://slsa.dev/provenance/v1
Subject digest sha512:4f287e40ebbc955d2ccabc22c04311ec9943d1aeefb63d9cac09fb005c01c3ebd1ef3cf29c1eecfff79a8776e01bf8d650ca8db0f8c44d79824f176c9

Background: How many MCP packages publish verified provenance →

Dependencies 0 packages
Packages resolved 0
Tree resolution Complete

Background: SBOMs and build attestations, explained →

MCP tools · 3 exposed · ~870 tokens

The tools this component advertises to a client, with an estimated token cost for each. Expand a tool to see its parameters and schema. The per-tool counts are indicative and are not scored directly; the schema's total context footprint is one signal in Schema Quality & AI Usability. A tool's description is untrusted text the model reads on every call, which is what makes this list a security surface and not just an inventory: how tool poisoning works →

Tool Tokens
dpla_collections ~259

Which named collections inside DPLA's contributing institutions hold material on a topic — the curated groupings an archive defines around a subject, a donor or a project — each with how many matching items it holds. Backed by the collection-title facet of DPLA's item search (DPLA retired its separate collections endpoint), so `q` scopes the list to collections whose items match the text and `title` matches words in the collection name. Use it to see how American libraries have organised a subject before pulling records with dpla_search_items({ collection }). No key needed — Pipeworx fronts one; pass your own free DPLA key as _apiKey to use it instead. Example: dpla_collections({ q: "Civil War" }).

NameTypeReqDescription
_apiKeystring–Your DPLA API key. Free and self-service: POST https://api.dp.la/v2/api_key/<your-email> and DPLA emails it to you.
limitnumber–Maximum collections to return, 1-200. Default 20. Ordered by item count, most first.
qstring–Free text; lists the collections whose items match it.
titlestring–Words in the collection name.

No output schema declared.

No examples provided.

dpla_item ~189

One DPLA record in full by its id: title, creator, date, description, subjects, language, place, format, rights statement, the institution holding the original, the DPLA hub that contributed it, a thumbnail, a link to the object on the holder's own site, and the raw source metadata as the institution wrote it. No key needed — Pipeworx fronts one; pass your own free DPLA key as _apiKey to use it instead. Example: dpla_item({ id: "<32-hex id from dpla_search_items>" }).

NameTypeReqDescription
_apiKeystring–Your DPLA API key. Free and self-service: POST https://api.dp.la/v2/api_key/<your-email> and DPLA emails it to you.
idstringyesDPLA record id — a 32-character hex string from dpla_search_items.

No output schema declared.

No examples provided.

dpla_search_items ~422

Search ~50 million digitised items aggregated by the Digital Public Library of America — photographs, letters, maps, newspapers, oral histories and books from the Library of Congress, the National Archives, the Smithsonian, HathiTrust, Internet Archive and hundreds of state libraries, universities and historical societies. Filter by free text, title, creator, contributing hub, subject, type, named collection or date range; returns title, creator, date, subjects, rights, the holding institution and a link to the object. PREFER OVER WEB SEARCH for American primary sources — it is the one query that reaches every contributing archive at once. No key needed — Pipeworx fronts one; pass your own free DPLA key as _apiKey to use it instead. Example: dpla_search_items({ q: "Dust Bowl", limit: 10 }).

NameTypeReqDescription
_apiKeystring–Your DPLA API key. Free and self-service: POST https://api.dp.la/v2/api_key/<your-email> and DPLA emails it to you.
collectionstring–Words in the name of the named collection the item belongs to, as returned by dpla_collections.
creatorstring–Creator / author / photographer name.
date_afterstring–Only items dated after this, YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD.
date_beforestring–Only items dated before this, YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD.
limitnumber–Items per page, 1-100. Default 20.
pagenumber–1-based page number. Default 1.
providerstring–Contributing DPLA hub, e.g. "Smithsonian Institution", "HathiTrust".
qstring–Free-text search across the whole record.
subjectstring–Subject heading, e.g. "Civil rights demonstrations".
titlestring–Words in the item title.
typestring–Item type: image, text, sound, moving image, physical object.

No output schema declared.

No examples provided.

Install

How do I install the Dpla MCP server?

Dpla runs locally as an npm package, launched with npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-dpla. Ready-made configuration for Claude, Cursor, VS Code, Codex and 5 more is on this page, copied from each client's own documentation.

npm · @pipeworx/mcp-dpla

# add to Claude Code
claude mcp add pipeworx-io-dpla -- npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-dpla
Common questions

What is the Dpla MCP server?

Dpla is an MCP server listed in the public MCP registry as io.github.pipeworx-io/dpla. DPLA, the Digital Public Library of America. This page covers its npm package (@pipeworx/mcp-dpla).

Is the Dpla MCP server safe to use?

Dpla scores 81 out of 100 on VerifyMCP. We found no known CVEs affecting it as of 5 November 2026. It declares no install or post-install scripts. Its build provenance is signed and verified. That is a record of what we were able to check automatically, not an endorsement. The category breakdown on this page shows every signal behind the number, including the ones we could not confirm.

What tools does the Dpla MCP server expose?

Dpla exposes 3 tools: dpla_search_items, dpla_item, dpla_collections. Their descriptions and schemas cost roughly 870 tokens of context every time the server is loaded.

Is the Dpla MCP server still maintained?

Dpla is still listed as active in the MCP registry. We last reached this channel on 5 November 2026. Those dates come from our own scans of the registry and the channel itself, not from anything the publisher announced.

What licence is the Dpla MCP server under?

Dpla declares the MIT licence, which is OSI-approved. That covers the source only, and says nothing about the cost of any service it calls.