About Austin Animal Services
Austin Animal Services is an MCP server for querying current Austin Animal Center shelter intake and outcome records. It serves animal lookups and grouped outcome counts using the city's hourly-refreshed datasets, for animal-welfare researchers and local data users.
Key features
- 01Query recent shelter intakes
- 02Search animals by ID, name, or breed
- 03Summarize outcomes by type, animal, or month
- 04Use current hourly-refreshed datasets
Use cases
- 01Count recent dog or cat intakes
- 02Look up an animal across shelter records
- 03Review adoption and other outcome totals
MCP support
Exposes tools for recent intakes, animal lookup, and outcome summaries to MCP clients. It is available through the Pipeworx gateway or as a local stdio MCP server.
Configuration
Remote servers need no local install. Pick your client, then copy the config or install in one click.
https://gateway.pipeworx.io/austin-animal-services/mcpclaude mcp add --transport http pipeworx-io-austin-animal-services https://gateway.pipeworx.io/austin-animal-services/mcp{"mcpServers":{"pipeworx-io-austin-animal-services":{"type":"http","url":"https://gateway.pipeworx.io/austin-animal-services/mcp"}}}Open in Cursor{"servers":{"pipeworx-io-austin-animal-services":{"type":"http","url":"https://gateway.pipeworx.io/austin-animal-services/mcp"}}}Open in VS Code{"mcpServers":{"pipeworx-io-austin-animal-services":{"type":"http","url":"https://gateway.pipeworx.io/austin-animal-services/mcp"}}}{"mcpServers":{"pipeworx-io-austin-animal-services":{"serverUrl":"https://gateway.pipeworx.io/austin-animal-services/mcp"}}}Run commands in a terminal; paste JSON into the client’s MCP config and restart. Servers that need sign-in will prompt on first connect.
Tools
44| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| q | string | No | Alias for question. |
| ask | string | No | Alias for question. |
| text | string | No | Alias for question. |
| input | string | No | Alias for question. |
| packs | array | No | OPTIONAL. Restrict routing to these pack slugs (e.g. ["sec-form-d","sec-13f"]) — the router then picks only from tools in those packs. Omit for the default full-catalog routing. Slugs come from list_packs / search_packs / https://pipeworx.io/directory; unlisted or unknown slugs are ignored and named in _meta.pack_scope.ignored, and if none of them resolves the question is routed across the whole catalog with _meta.pack_scope.full_catalog:true (never an empty answer). |
| query | string | No | Alias for question. |
| prompt | string | No | Alias for question. |
| message | string | No | Alias for question. |
| question | string | Yes | Your question or request in natural language. Accepts query, q, prompt, text, input, ask, message as aliases. |
Details
From the project README@pipeworx/austin-animal-services
Live shelter intake and outcome records from the Austin Animal Center (Austin, TX) — recent intakes, animal lookup, and outcome summaries (adoptions, transfers, euthanasia, etc).
Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1872+ live data sources. This is an independent, unofficial integration — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or published by the upstream provider.
Tools
austin_recent_intakes(days?, animal_type?, intake_type?, limit?)— recent intakes (default last 30 days), with a total count for the window plus a page of rows. Answers "how many dogs did Austin Animal Center take in last month".austin_search_animal(animal_id?, name?, breed?, limit?)— look up an animal by id, name, or breed across both intake and outcome records.austin_outcomes_summary(since?, group_by?)— counts of outcomes grouped byoutcome_type,animal_type, ormonth.
Auth
Keyless. Pass your own Socrata app token via _apiKey for higher rate
limits.
Data sources
- https://data.austintexas.gov/resource/pyqf-r2dc.json — Austin Animal Center Intakes (current, hourly refresh, live since May 2025).
- https://data.austintexas.gov/resource/gsvs-ypi7.json — Austin Animal Center Outcomes (current, hourly refresh, live since May 2025).
The city migrated to a new shelter system (ShelterBuddy) in May 2025. The
older "Austin Animal Center Intakes/Outcomes (10/01/2013 to 05/05/2025)"
datasets (wter-evkm / 9t4d-g238) are now frozen historical snapshots with
no rows after 2025-05-19 — this pack deliberately uses the current,
hourly-refreshed successors instead so "recent" and "last month" queries
answer correctly. Socrata paging is $limit/$offset; every call in this
pack sets $limit explicitly. Field names differ between the current and
historical datasets (e.g. intake timestamp is source_date on the current
dataset, datetime on the historical one) — don't assume they're
interchangeable.
Quick Start
Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):
{
"mcpServers": {
"austin-animal-services": {
"url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/austin-animal-services/mcp"
}
}
}
What this endpoint actually serves
tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/austin-animal-services/mcp returns the tools in the table
above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx,
discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the
gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a
single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the
pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and
is the authoritative answer for a given day.
This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a
scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via
ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a
second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without
them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth,
connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.
Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:
{
"mcpServers": {
"pipeworx": {
"url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
}
}
}
Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1872+ data sources. The
only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx
reaches all of them from either one.
No MCP client? Call it over HTTP
curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/austin_recent_intakes \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{"days":30,"animal_type":"Dog"}'
No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/austin_recent_intakes. Find one: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs with {"query":"..."}.
Standalone (no gateway account)
This package also runs as a local stdio MCP server — no Pipeworx account, no gateway round-trip:
{
"mcpServers": {
"austin-animal-services": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-austin-animal-services"]
}
}
}
Or run it directly to confirm it starts:
npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-austin-animal-services
It speaks MCP over stdin/stdout and answers initialize/tools/list/tools/call
for only this pack's tools — none of the shared meta-tools the gateway
connection above adds. Same source, same tools, no ask_pipeworx routing.
Using with ask_pipeworx
Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:
ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about Austin Animal Services data" })
The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.
More
License
MIT
Comments
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