
Artsdata
Search Artsdata for authoritative data on Canadian events, artists, organizations, and places.
What it can do
What data it sees
Do you need an account
No: the server works without sign-in
Search Artsdata for authoritative data on Canadian events, artists, organizations, and places.
How to connect
How to connect Artsdata to Claude
The server address to paste into Claude settings:
https://mcp.artsdata.ca/mcp
- Open Claude (claude.ai or the desktop app).
- Go to Settings → Connectors.
- Click Add custom connector.
- Paste the server address copied below into Remote MCP server URL and click Add.
- In a chat, click + → Connectors and switch the new connector on.
Custom connectors are available on Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans (Free is limited to one). On Team and Enterprise an organization Owner adds the connector first under Organization settings → Connectors.
Authorization
After you click Add, a sign-in window for the service opens. Sign in with your own account and approve access. Claude never sees your password.
How to connect Artsdata to ChatGPT
The server address to paste into ChatGPT settings:
https://mcp.artsdata.ca/mcp
- Open ChatGPT in a browser (chatgpt.com). A Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise or Edu plan is required.
- Turn on developer mode once: Settings → Apps → Advanced settings → Developer mode.
- Open Settings → Connectors and click Create.
- Fill in the form: Name (anything), Description (one line about what the service does), MCP server URL (copy it below).
- Under Authentication choose OAuth if the service requires sign-in, otherwise None. Click Create.
- In a new chat open + → Apps/Connectors and enable the connector.
OpenAI has renamed this section before (Connectors → Apps/Plugins). If the label differs, search settings for "developer mode". On Business/Enterprise workspaces an admin must allow custom connectors first.
Authorization
On first use ChatGPT opens the service's sign-in window. Sign in and approve access.
How to connect Artsdata to Cursor
The server address to paste into Cursor settings:
https://mcp.artsdata.ca/mcp
Fastest: click Open in Cursor below and confirm the prompt.
Manually:
- In Cursor open Settings → Cursor Settings → MCP and click Add new global MCP server.
- Paste the JSON copied below into
~/.cursor/mcp.json(per project:.cursor/mcp.jsonin the repo root). - Save the file. The server appears in the MCP list; authorize it there if asked.
Authorization
If the service needs sign-in, an authorize button appears next to the server in the MCP list.
Server tool list (5)
Raw names from tools/list. Only developers need these.
| search_entities | Tool to search for entities in the Artsdata knowledge graph by name, with optional filters on entity type and on the controlled vocabulary (skos:ConceptScheme) a concept belongs to. |
| get_entity | Tool to get entities details from Artsdata Knowledge Graph by entity URI. |
| search_events | Tool to search for events in the Artsdata knowledge graph by place, artist, organization, has_event_type_concept and language. Places, artists and organizations are Artsdata entity URIs; the has_event_type_concept filter takes concept URIs from the Artsdata Event Types vocabulary (adr:ArtsdataEventTypes), not schema.org classes. Resolve any name or label to its URI with search_entities first. Places must be venues; for events in a city or region, use sparql_query (see the places parameter). |
| get_schema | Returns the data model of the Artsdata Knowledge Graph: its entity classes (Event, Place, Organization, Person, LivePerformanceWork...), the properties of each with required/optional, cardinality, value types, linked classes and allowed values, the controlled vocabularies, the SPARQL prefixes, and conventions for querying. Derived from the Artsdata Ontology and the Artsdata CORE graph SHACL shapes. Call this before writing a SPARQL query to run with sparql_query against https://query.artsdata.ca/query, since Artsdata's model is not general knowledge. Takes no input. |
| sparql_query | Runs a read-only SPARQL 1.1 SELECT or ASK query against the Artsdata Knowledge Graph (https://query.artsdata.ca/query) and returns the result as SPARQL 1.1 Query Results JSON, exactly as the endpoint returns it: head.vars and results.bindings for SELECT, boolean for ASK. Call get_schema first and build the query from the classes, properties, prefixes and conventions it returns, since Artsdata's model is not general knowledge. Declare every PREFIX you use and always add a LIMIT: at most 1000 rows are returned (the rest is cut and truncated is true; page with OFFSET), and a query gets 25 seconds. If the endpoint rejects the query, its error message is returned so you can fix the query and retry. For the details of an entity URI in the results use get_entity; to find an entity's URI from its name use search_entities. |