faa-airmen-registry-mcp-server

---

Overview

FAA airmen certification records from the Releasable Airmen Database, served from a local snapshot. Resolve names to separate identity candidates, read pilot and non-pilot certificates with their ordered ratings, find flight and ground instructors and remote pilots, and read informational medical fields.

Runs as a stdio process, a loopback Streamable HTTP server (directly or in Docker), or the public hosted endpoint above. A self-hosted operator builds the snapshot with a separate CLI; the server never downloads data, and no API key is needed.

Tools

Tool	Description
faa_airmen_verify_certificate	Find identity candidates by name or FAA Unique ID, optionally narrowed by certificate type, level, and ratings, and read their complete certificate records
faa_airmen_get_type_ratings	Read all pilot-family certificates and their aircraft type, category/class, and instrument ratings
faa_airmen_check_medical_status	Read informational medical and BasicMed fields without assessing fitness or eligibility
faa_airmen_search_instructors	Find flight and ground instructor records by name, state, and ratings
faa_airmen_verify_remote_pilot	Find releasable remote pilot certificate records by name or Unique ID
faa_airmen_list_reference	Read codes, interpretation guidance, observed type designators, and mirror status

Capability reference

faa_airmen_verify_certificate _tool

• mode: "name" requires lastName; firstName, state, city, and zipCode narrow it. nameMatch applies to each supplied name field: words (default) matches whole leading words, so JOHN finds the FIRST NAME JOHN ROBERT (FAA first names usually include middle names) and SMITH finds the LAST NAME SMITH JR; only a space separates words, so SMITH does not find SMITH-JONES. exact compares the whole field, and prefix matches from its beginning, mid-word included
• mode: "id" takes one uniqueId, an opaque A or C plus seven digits that is not a certificate number, and rejects name and location fields
• certificateType (a type letter, its reference topic certificate_types description such as remote pilot or flight_instructor in any case, or CFI) selects people but returns all their certificates; people sharing a name stay separate candidates
• certificateLevel (one letter from reference topic certificate_levels; requires certificateType), ratingCodes (1–11 codes from topic ratings), and typeRatings (1–11 designators from topic type_ratings, such as B-737) narrow candidates further. Every requested credential must sit on one certificate, and matches still return all their certificates. Repeats collapse. A bare code or designator matches any level, and level/code only that slot's level: A/B-737 is a type rating held at ATP level, while certificateLevel: "A" with B-737 asks for an ATP certificate carrying it at any level, C/B-737 included
• A zero result with credential filters says how many people the name search matches without them, so a name miss reads apart from a credential miss
• With FAA_AIRMEN_REDACT_PII on (the default), name mode needs both lastName and firstName and refuses nameMatch: "prefix", city, and zipCode with pii_redacted; city and ZIP are omitted from results

---

faa_airmen_get_type_ratings _tool

• One uniqueId from faa_airmen_verify_certificate; returns every certificate from the FAA pilot files with ordered ratings and typeRatings slots, each keeping its raw value, ordinal, and code
• found: false for an unknown ID; a known person with only non-pilot certificates gets an empty certificates array

---

faa_airmen_check_medical_status _tool

• One uniqueId; returns each distinct reported medical record: medicalClass, medicalDateRaw and medicalExpireDateRaw (normally MMYYYY), and the BasicMed course and checklist dates (normally YYYYMMDD)
• found separates an unknown ID from a known person, and hasReportedMedicalFields: false means nothing was reported, never an adverse finding. Every result carries a disclaimer: the fields are informational, not evidence of fitness or eligibility
• With FAA_AIRMEN_REDACT_PII on (the default), every call is refused with pii_redacted

---

faa_airmen_search_instructors _tool

• Needs at least one of lastName, firstName, state, city, zipCode, or ratingCodes; instructorType is flight (F), ground (G), or both (default)
• ratingCodes takes 1–11 codes from reference topic ratings, all required on the same certificate; repeats collapse. A bare code matches any source level, and level/code (the raw form results return, such as F/INSTA; the level is one letter) only that level. CFII is INSTA, INSTH, INSTI, or INSTP on F and MEI is AME or ASME; INST, ADV, and BASIC occur only on G
• With FAA_AIRMEN_REDACT_PII on (the default), a name search needs both lastName and firstName, and nameMatch: "prefix", city, and zipCode are refused with pii_redacted; city and ZIP are omitted from results
• Matches carry their complete qualifying instructorCertificates. Legacy expiry fields don't establish currency, and CFI certificates no longer expire under the December 2024 rule

---

faa_airmen_verify_remote_pilot _tool

• Same mode, uniqueId, and name selectors as faa_airmen_verify_certificate; returns only people holding U certificates, with all of them in remotePilotCertificates
• With FAA_AIRMEN_REDACT_PII on (the default), the same name restrictions apply: both names required, and nameMatch: "prefix", city, and zipCode refused with pii_redacted
• Certificate presence doesn't establish Part 107 recurrent-training currency or operating authority

---

faa_airmen_list_reference _tool

• topic is certificate_types, certificate_levels, ratings, type_ratings, identifiers, medical_guidance, or mirror_status; the four vocabulary topics take a case-insensitive filter of up to 80 characters
• Static topics and mirror_status answer before a snapshot exists; type_ratings lists the designators observed in the imported snapshot
• mirror_status returns mirrorStatus.state (missing, ready, unavailable), refreshState (idle, running, failed), lastRefreshFailure (the stage of a refresh that didn't complete, such as acquisition, validation, disk, cancelled, timeout, or interrupted for one whose process ended without recording a result), and the latest generation's provenance, without filesystem paths

Features

Built on @cyanheads/mcp-ts-core: stdio and Streamable HTTP transports, pluggable auth (none / jwt / oauth), swappable storage (in-memory, filesystem, Supabase, Cloudflare KV/R2/D1), structured logging with optional OpenTelemetry tracing.

FAA-specific:

• Offline SQLite lookups over the four monthly source files (PILOT_BASIC, NONPILOT_BASIC, PILOT_CERT, NONPILOT_CERT), joined by FAA Unique ID, keeping every distinct certificate and differing identity variant
• Street addresses are discarded before anything is stored. City and ZIP import, output, and filtering need FAA_AIRMEN_INCLUDE_LOCATION=true; state is always available
• Serving-time redaction is on by default (FAA_AIRMEN_REDACT_PII, only false turns it off): name searches need first and last name, prefix matching and city/ZIP filters are refused, city and ZIP are omitted from output, and faa_airmen_check_medical_status refuses every call. Refusals carry the reason pii_redacted, every successful response carries piiRedacted, and the mirror import is unaffected
• The faa-airmen-registry-mirror CLI downloads and validates each snapshot into an immutable generation; a failed refresh leaves the last complete one serving
• The FAA omits airmen who withhold address release and publishes no certificate numbers or recurrent-training dates. A miss is not evidence that someone is uncertificated, and a match is not a current-privilege determination; use the FAA's official services for authoritative answers

Agent-friendly output:

• Provenance on every snapshot-backed response: source name, snapshot month, source age with a stale flag, generation ID, and the generation's location import policy, plus the normalized appliedFilters; faa_airmen_list_reference topic mirror_status returns the full record, including hashes, row counts, and source-quality warning counts
• Whole-record paging: list tools return complete people within a ~24 KiB response budget, so limit (default 10, at most 50; a larger limit returns 50 with a notice) is an upper bound. totalCount, returnedCount, and nextOffset describe the actual page; offsets stop at 10,000, where atPagingCap asks for narrower filters
• Typed failures that name the next call: mirror_missing, location_access_disabled, pii_redacted, invalid_filter, and the other declared reasons each carry a recovery step. A validation failure names the field and its expected form (state must be a two-letter state or territory code.), never the value, and empty pages still return totals and guidance

Getting started

Public Hosted Instance

A public instance is available at https://faa-airmen-registry.caseyjhand.com/mcp — no installation or snapshot required. It serves Streamable HTTP; each client takes its own config shape.

For Claude Code:

claude mcp add --transport http faa-airmen-registry-mcp-server https://faa-airmen-registry.caseyjhand.com/mcp

For Cline (cline_mcp_settings.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "faa-airmen-registry-mcp-server": {
      "type": "streamableHttp",
      "url": "https://faa-airmen-registry.caseyjhand.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

For Cursor (mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "faa-airmen-registry-mcp-server": {
      "url": "https://faa-airmen-registry.caseyjhand.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop adds remote servers under Settings → Connectors.

The hosted instance runs with redaction on: name searches need both first and last names, nameMatch: "prefix" and city/ZIP searches are refused, and medical lookups are unavailable. Whole leading words remain supported by the default words matching. For the full surface, self-host with FAA_AIRMEN_REDACT_PII=false.

Self-Hosted / Local

A local install serves its own snapshot, so build it before connecting a client:

export FAA_AIRMEN_MIRROR_DIR="$HOME/.local/share/faa-airmen-registry-mcp-server"
npx -y --package @cyanheads/faa-airmen-registry-mcp-server faa-airmen-registry-mirror init

init downloads the current FAA archive (about 57 MB) and builds a SQLite generation of about 1.75 GB; it took about 12 minutes in testing. The importer also keeps a 1 GiB free-space reserve, so allow about 3 GB. The same CLI runs verify, status, refresh, and prune. refresh builds the next generation beside the current one (another ~1.75 GB) and never deletes old ones, since a running server may still be reading one. status reports how many superseded generations there are and their size. Stop every server process that uses the mirror, then run prune: it takes the writer lock, refuses unless the published snapshot is ready, deletes every generation CURRENT doesn't name, and prints what it removed and the bytes freed. Deleting a generation a server still has open can fail that server's lookups (Bun on macOS) or the deletion itself (Windows).

Point the MCP client at the same FAA_AIRMEN_MIRROR_DIR; left unset, both use the platform user-data directory. To keep city and ZIP, set FAA_AIRMEN_INCLUDE_LOCATION=true for both import and serving; a snapshot imported without it needs a refresh after enabling. Output redaction is on by default and applies at serving time only; a personal local install that wants the full surface (medical lookups, partial-name and city/ZIP searches, city and ZIP in output) sets FAA_AIRMEN_REDACT_PII=false on the server.

MCP client configuration

Add the following to your MCP client configuration file.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "faa-airmen-registry-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "bunx",
      "args": ["@cyanheads/faa-airmen-registry-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "FAA_AIRMEN_MIRROR_DIR": "/absolute/path/to/airmen-mirror"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with npx (no Bun required):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "faa-airmen-registry-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@cyanheads/faa-airmen-registry-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "FAA_AIRMEN_MIRROR_DIR": "/absolute/path/to/airmen-mirror"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with Docker. The image keeps its snapshot in /data/airmen, so initialize a named volume first; run the same command with refresh, verify, or status for maintenance, and with prune once every server container using the volume is stopped:

docker volume create faa-airmen-data
docker run --rm -v faa-airmen-data:/data/airmen ghcr.io/cyanheads/faa-airmen-registry-mcp-server:latest bun dist/cli/mirror.js init

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "faa-airmen-registry-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "docker",
      "args": ["run", "-i", "--rm", "-v", "faa-airmen-data:/data/airmen", "-e", "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=stdio", "ghcr.io/cyanheads/faa-airmen-registry-mcp-server:latest"]
    }
  }
}

For Streamable HTTP, start the server on loopback:

MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=http MCP_HTTP_PORT=3010 bun run start:http
# Or from the image, published on loopback only:
docker run --rm -p 127.0.0.1:3010:3010 -v faa-airmen-data:/data/airmen ghcr.io/cyanheads/faa-airmen-registry-mcp-server:latest
# Server listens at http://127.0.0.1:3010/mcp

Prerequisites

• Bun v1.4.0 or higher (or Node.js v24+).
• About 3 GB of persistent local storage for the snapshot; network access is needed only for init and refresh.
• Under Node, better-sqlite3 loads prebuilt bindings for macOS, Linux, and Windows on x64 and arm64 with no compiler step. Execution is tested on macOS under Node and Bun.

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/cyanheads/faa-airmen-registry-mcp-server.git

2. Navigate into the directory:

cd faa-airmen-registry-mcp-server

3. Install dependencies:

bun install

4. Configure environment:

cp .env.example .env
# set FAA_AIRMEN_MIRROR_DIR, and FAA_AIRMEN_INCLUDE_LOCATION if you want city and ZIP
# FAA_AIRMEN_REDACT_PII=false lifts serving-time redaction on a personal local install

5. Build and initialize the snapshot:

bun run rebuild
node --env-file=.env dist/cli/mirror.js init

The CLI doesn't load .env itself; pass --env-file=.env or export the variables.

Configuration

Variable	Description	Default
FAA_AIRMEN_MIRROR_DIR	Persistent snapshot directory, shared by the CLI and the server.	Platform user-data directory plus faa-airmen-registry-mcp-server
FAA_AIRMEN_INCLUDE_LOCATION	true opts in to city and ZIP import, and to output and filtering when FAA_AIRMEN_REDACT_PII=false; false disables them.	false
FAA_AIRMEN_REDACT_PII	Serving-time redaction, on by default; only false (any case) turns it off, and any other value leaves it on. Never changes what the mirror imports.	true
FAA_AIRMEN_STALE_AFTER_DAYS	Source-age warning threshold, integer 1–366; never a credential verdict.	45
MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE	Transport: stdio or http.	stdio
MCP_HTTP_HOST	HTTP bind address.	127.0.0.1
MCP_HTTP_PORT	HTTP server port.	3010
MCP_SESSION_MODE	HTTP session mode: stateless, stateful, or auto; a meaningful value overrides the server's stateless declaration.	stateless
MCP_AUTH_MODE	Authentication: none, jwt, or oauth.	none
MCP_LOG_LEVEL	Log level (debug, info, warning, error, etc.).	info
OTEL_ENABLED	Enable OpenTelemetry.	false

See .env.example for the common framework overrides. Framework storage settings don't relocate the FAA snapshot.

Running the server

Local development

• Build and run the production version:

  # One-time build and snapshot
  bun run rebuild
  node --env-file=.env dist/cli/mirror.js init
  
  # Run the built server
  bun run start:stdio
  # or
  bun run start:http
  

• Run checks and tests:

  bun run devcheck  # Lints, formats, type-checks, and more
  bun run test      # Runs the test suite
  

Project structure

Directory	Purpose
src/mcp-server/tools	Tool definitions (*.tool.ts), shared schemas, and lossless rendering. Six read-only tools.
src/services/airmen	FAA acquisition, streaming import, immutable snapshot lifecycle, queries, and reference tables.
src/cli	The faa-airmen-registry-mirror operator CLI.
src/config	Server-specific environment variable parsing and validation with Zod.
tests/	Synthetic-source lifecycle, query, and MCP contract tests.

Development guide

See CLAUDE.md for development guidelines and architectural rules. The short version:

• Handlers throw, framework catches — no try/catch in tool logic
• The snapshot is operator-owned and read-only; keep it in the service layer and use ctx.state only for tenant state
• Register new tools in the createApp() arrays in src/index.ts
• Validate source rows → normalize to domain types → return the output schema; never fabricate missing fields, never persist street addresses, and use synthetic identities in tests and examples

Contributing

Issues are welcome. Run checks and tests before submitting:

bun run devcheck
bun run test

License

This project is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. See the LICENSE file for details.