National MCP Server

Connect National to Claude, Cursor or any other MCP client and it stops being a tab you switch to. Plan US National Park Service trips — parks, alerts, campgrounds, things to do, events. The national mcp server is what makes that connection.

What the server does

• Declarative tool definitions — single file per tool, framework handles registration and validation
• Unified error handling — handlers throw, framework catches, classifies, and formats
• Pluggable auth: none, jwt, oauth
• Swappable storage backends: in-memory, filesystem, Supabase, Cloudflare KV/R2/D1
• Structured logging with optional OpenTelemetry tracing
• STDIO and Streamable HTTP transports — same codebase runs locally or on Cloudflare Workers

Available tools

The toolset is worth reading before you wire it up, because it tells you what the integration is really for:

• nps_find_parks — Resolve a place name, US state, or free-text query to parks — the required first step. Returns each park's parkCode plus a trip-planning summary
• nps_get_park — Full detail for up to ten parks in one batched call: description, activities, fees & passes, hours, contacts, directions, weather overview, images
• nps_get_alerts — Current alerts for a park or state — closures, hazards, caution, information — with category and recency surfaced first
• nps_find_campgrounds — Campgrounds at a park or state: amenities, reservable vs. first-come site counts, reservation info, accessibility, and fees
• nps_get_activities — Curated things to do and points of interest: title, duration, location, accessibility, and fee/pet/reservation flags
• nps_find_events — Scheduled events within a date range: dates/times, location, category, fee, and registration links
• Prerequisites — The Prerequisites tool exposed by this server
• Installation — The Installation tool exposed by this server

Credentials and setup notes

Configuration is passed through the environment: MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE, MCP_LOG_LEVEL, NPS_API_KEY, NPS_BASE_URL, MCP_HTTP_ENDPOINT_PATH. Treat anything key-shaped as a real credential — scope it to the minimum the server needs, and rotate it if it ever lands in a shared config.

• Bun v1.3 or higher (or Node.js v24+). - A free NPS Data API key — instant signup. The server fails to start without it.

Installation

Because this one is hosted, setup is mostly authentication — you point your client at the endpoint and approve access. Nothing runs on your machine, so there is no runtime to keep patched.

Where it fits

Plenty of cloud and infrastructure servers cover similar ground. The differences that matter in practice are scope of access and how much setup stands between you and a working tool call. National's toolset — nps_find_parks, nps_get_park, nps_get_alerts and 5 more — is a fair guide to whether it matches your workflow. It is maintained by cyanheads; worth a glance at recent repository activity before you build anything load-bearing on it.

We check each listing at SyncDev against the project's documentation before it goes live — if something here drifts out of date, it is a bug worth reporting.

Worth knowing first

• Your data travels to the provider's service, so the usual questions apply about what you send and what they retain.
• Missing credentials fail quietly in some clients — if no tools show up, check the environment block first.
• Keep per-call confirmation enabled while you learn its behaviour; it is the cheapest safeguard you have.