@pipeworx/usda-soil

USDA-NRCS Soil Data Access over SSURGO — the detailed US soil survey, mapped by field crews at 1:12,000-1:63,360 and republished annually. Soil at a point, the named soil series inside a map unit with their properties and horizons, and arbitrary SQL over the full survey schema.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1866+ live data sources. This is an independent, unofficial integration — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or published by the upstream provider.

Tools

• usda_soil_mapunit_at_point(lat, lon) — map unit key, symbol, official name, acreage, farmland class, survey area and its publication date.
• usda_soil_components(mukey, include_horizons?) — the soil series in a map unit with percentage, taxonomy, drainage class, slope range, hydrologic group, land capability class and hydric rating; optionally the depth horizons with sand/silt/clay, organic matter, pH, available water capacity and Ksat.
• usda_soil_query(sql) — read-only SELECT over the SSURGO schema.

Auth

Keyless.

Not the same as soilgrids

soilgrids is ISRIC's 250 m machine-learning prediction for the whole globe. This is the surveyed US ground truth: named series, official taxonomy, interpretation ratings — and it covers only the United States and its territories. Use soilgrids outside the US, or where a modelled continuous surface is wanted instead of a mapped polygon.

Data sources

• https://sdmdataaccess.sc.egov.usda.gov/Tabular/post.rest — POST {"format":"JSON+COLUMNNAME","query":"<T-SQL>"}.

Traps this pack absorbs:

• It is SQL Server. TOP n, not LIMIT n.
• JSON+COLUMNNAME returns an array of arrays, not objects — Table[0] is the column-name row. runSql zips them into objects.
• Errors come back as OGC XML with a 400, and the first 300 characters are entirely XML-namespace boilerplate, so slicing the raw body hides the one sentence that names the problem. summarizeErrorBody from @pipeworx/shared unwraps the <ServiceException>; a bad column now reads USDA Soil Data Access: 400 Invalid query: Invalid column name 'nosuchcolumn'. (from the upstream's XML error document).
• A valid SELECT that matches nothing returns an empty Table, not an error — usda_soil_query says so explicitly rather than presenting an empty result as a finding.
• Column locations are not where you would guess. saverest (survey area publication date) is on sacatalog, not legend. farmlndcl is on mapunit, not component. Land capability on component is nirrcapcl/nirrcapscl.
• Point geometry goes through SDA_Get_Mukey_from_intersection_with_WktWgs84 with WKT point(lon lat) — longitude first.

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "usda-soil": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/usda-soil/mcp"
    }
  }
}

What this endpoint actually serves

tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/usda-soil/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 1866+ 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/usda_soil_mapunit_at_point \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"lat":41.6,"lon":-93.6}'

No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/usda_soil_mapunit_at_point. Find one: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs with {"query":"..."}.

Run it from npm

@pipeworx/mcp-usda-soil is a local stdio bridge to the Pipeworx gateway: your MCP client starts it with npx, and it forwards every call to the same https://gateway.pipeworx.io/usda-soil/mcp endpoint shown above. It needs network access; there is no offline mode.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "usda-soil": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-usda-soil"]
    }
  }
}

Without a key it calls anonymously, capped at 50 calls a day. A free account raises that to 200 a day: get a key at https://pipeworx.io/signup and add "env": { "PIPEWORX_API_KEY": "<your key>" } to the server entry. The key is sent as a Bearer token, the same way a hosted connection sends it, so calls are metered and billed exactly as they are there.

It lists only this pack's tools by default. Set PIPEWORX_META_TOOLS=1 to also list ask_pipeworx and the other gateway-wide tools.

Behind an HTTPS proxy: Node's built-in fetch does not read HTTPS_PROXY by default. Newer Node releases honour it when NODE_USE_ENV_PROXY=1 is set; check your Node version's documentation.

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 Usda Soil data" })

The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.

More

• Docs and guides
• pipeworx.io

License

MIT