Mobus
Dataset search for AI assistants Discover, preview, and analyze datasets across 20 platforms from a single conversation.
Connect to Claude
Add Mobus to Claude in under a minute. No install, no API keys, nothing to run.
- Open claude.ai (or Claude Desktop / Mobile)
- Go to Settings from the bottom left → Connectors
- Click Add custom connector
- Name it Mobus and paste this URL:
https://mobus-production.up.railway.app/mcp
- Start a new chat and try:
"Search for air quality datasets with a commercial license"
That's it. All 15 tools are available immediately.
What it does
Just ask your AI assistant.
"Search for air-quality datasets with a commercial license" "Preview the first 20 rows of that Zenodo dataset" "Find SEC filings mentioning climate risk" "Generate an APA citation for that Hugging Face dataset" "Check if this dataset can be used commercially" "Visualize that dataset"
Mobus fans requests out to every configured platform in parallel, checks licenses, previews data, generates citations, and traces academic lineage — failing gracefully whenever an API key is missing.
Tools
Discovery
Evaluation
Quality & Compliance
|
Citation & Output
Advanced Research
|
Supported platforms
|
No auth needed
|
Optional auth
Requires key
Degraded
|
Missing keys automatically skip that platform. The server never crashes.
Run locally (optional)
If you prefer to self-host instead of using the hosted version above:
git clone https://github.com/hrantvirabyan/Mobus.git
cd Mobus
npm install
cp .env.example .env # fill in any keys you have (all optional)
npm run build
Cursor
Add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:
{
"mcpServers": {
"mobus": {
"command": "node",
"args": ["/absolute/path/to/Mobus/dist/main.js"]
}
}
}
Restart Cursor. All 15 tools appear in the chat.
Claude Desktop
Same config format, in ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows).
API keys (all optional)
| Variable | For | Where |
|---|---|---|
KAGGLE_USERNAME / KAGGLE_KEY | Kaggle | kaggle.com/account → API |
HF_TOKEN | Hugging Face | huggingface.co/settings/tokens |
GOOGLE_API_KEY / GOOGLE_CSE_ID | console.cloud.google.com | |
SOCRATA_APP_TOKEN | Socrata | dev.socrata.com/register |
Tool reference
Click to expand full parameter reference
search_datasets
| Parameter | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
query | string | required | Search query |
sources | string[] | all | Platforms to include |
limit | number | 5 | Results per source (max 20) |
license | string | — | e.g. cc-by-4.0 |
format | string | — | e.g. csv, parquet |
updated_after | string | — | ISO date |
modality | string | — | e.g. tabular, image |
get_dataset_details
| Parameter | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
source | string | Platform |
dataset_id | string | Dataset ID |
preview_dataset
| Parameter | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
source / dataset_id | string | required | — |
rows | number | 10 | Max 100 |
visualize_dataset (Only works locally - ask Claude to generate an artifact)
Generates an interactive ECharts dashboard with column picker, filter builder, row range selector, 9 chart types, sortable table, and PNG/SVG/CSV/JSON export.
| Parameter | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
source / dataset_id | string | required | — |
rows | number | 200 | Max 500 |
open | boolean | true | Auto-open browser |
compare_datasets
| Parameter | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
datasets | array | 2-5 {source, dataset_id} objects |
check_compatibility
| Parameter | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
source / dataset_id | string | — |
schema | array | [{name, type?}] |
find_similar
| Parameter | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
source / dataset_id | string | required | — |
limit | number | 5 | Max 20 |
generate_citation
| Parameter | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
source / dataset_id | string | required | — |
format | string | apa | bibtex, apa, chicago |
assess_quality
| Parameter | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
source / dataset_id | string | required | — |
sample_rows | number | 100 | Max 500 |
check_license
| Parameter | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
source / dataset_id | string | — |
use_case | string | commercial / academic / internal / redistribution |
watch_query
| Parameter | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
action | string | add / remove / list / check |
query / sources / watch_id | — | See action |
find_research_datasets
| Parameter | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
query | string | required | Research topic |
limit | number | 10 | Max 20 |
semantic | boolean | false | SPECTER v2 embeddings |
get_dataset_provenance / trace_citation_graph / get_dataset_lineage
Currently degraded — depend on the Papers with Code API which has shut down.
Known issues
- Papers with Code API shut down post-HuggingFace acquisition — lineage/provenance/citation-graph tools return errors
- Econdb now requires a key — returns empty until support is added
- arXiv rate-limits under heavy parallel load (adapter uses 3s throttle)
Contributing
See CONTRIBUTING.md. If Mobus saves you time, a GitHub star helps others find it.
License
MIT — see LICENSE.