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The Wherobots Model Context Protocol (MCP) server helps you explore spatial data and generate geospatial SQL through natural language. For installation instructions, see Install MCP Server.

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Benefits

The MCP Server integration in Wherobots Cloud allows for:
  • Intelligent Catalog Exploration: Discover and understand datasets with natural language.
  • Data Quality Assessment: Ask the MCP server to evaluate and summarize data issues.
  • Pre-work Streamlining: Use natural language for initial exploration and dataset triage.
  • Geospatial Query Assistance: Get help writing and optimizing spatial SQL queries.
Using the MCP server may result in data flowing to some of our services that are hosted in the United States. This may impact data residency for non-US customers.

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Common tasks

The MCP server excels at helping you understand and work with your spatial data through:
  • Schema Discovery: Prompt to understand table structures and relationships.
  • Query Optimization: Get suggestions for improving spatial query performance.
  • Best Practices: Receive guidance on spatial data analysis techniques based on your datasets and the Wherobots documentation.

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Example prompts

TaskExample prompt
Catalog discovery”What catalogs are available in my Organization?” or “Show me the data hierarchy for the Overture catalog”
Dataset exploration”What’s in the Overture buildings table?”
Data quality checks”Check the quality of location data in this dataset”
SQL generation”What are the cities that I’ll pass through if I drive from LA to NYC”
Questions about Wherobots”What Wherobots ST functions are limited to Paid Organizations”

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Exploring Overture dataset schema

For example, you can ask about the details in a specific dataset, such as: Screenshot showing the MCP server dataset details response in Copilot Chat

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Usage considerations

Consider the following best practices and limitations when using the Wherobots MCP server integration:

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What works well

The MCP server is optimized for tasks such as:
  • Catalog exploration and understanding what datasets are available
  • Data quality assessment and initial dataset analysis
  • SQL query assistance for spatial operations
  • General geospatial questions and guidance

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Initializing the MCP server

To ensure the MCP server is ready for efficient operation, you can ask preliminary questions. Performing these tasks helps the MCP server adapt to your organization’s datasets and helps ensure more accurate responses to subsequent queries.
  1. Dataset exploration queries Use natural language prompts to retrieve schema details or summarize the contents of specific datasets. Example:
    “What’s in the Overture buildings table?”
  2. General geospatial queries Ask basic geospatial questions to initialize the server’s natural language processing capabilities. Example:
    “What Wherobots ST functions are limited to Paid Organizations?”

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Limitations

  • Models dictate query success: Performance improves significantly with advanced AI models such as Claude Sonnet 4.5, Gemini 3 Pro, or GPT-5.1 Codex.
  • Compute constraints: MCP server runs on Tiny runtime with ~10-minute time limits.
  • Complex operations: Large-scale operations like planetary-scale analysis or isochrones may timeout.
  • IDE compatibility: This integration has been primarily tested with VS Code and functionality within Cursor and Claude Code has not been validated.

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Cost considerations

  • Professional and Enterprise Organizations
    • You are only billed for MCP server usage when you execute a query on Wherobots from the MCP server.
    • When executing queries on Wherobots from the MCP server, a SQL Session will start on a Tiny runtime.
    • SQL Sessions terminate after 5 minutes of inactivity.
    • Query execution contributes to Spatial Unit (SU) consumption and will be categorized as SQL Session consumption.
  • Usage tracking: Query execution activity appears in the Usage Chart as SQL Session usage.
  • Copilot requests: Usage counts toward your GitHub Copilot usage limits. For more information, see Requests in GitHub Copilot in the GitHub Documentation.

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Stop the MCP Server

When you are finished asking Wherobots-related questions, it is important to stop the MCP server. Stopping the server ensures that no additional charges are incurred from the MCP server and that resources are freed for other tasks. To stop the MCP server in VS Code:
  1. Open the Command Palette (Cmd+Shift+P on Mac, Ctrl+Shift+P on Windows/Linux).
  2. Type and select MCP: List Servers.
  3. Select the name of your server from the list.
  4. Click Stop Server.