Jhtdb MCP server

@pipeworx/jhtdb

Point queries (velocity, pressure, velocity gradient) on Johns Hopkins Turbulence Databases (JHTDB) reference DNS/LES datasets, plus a catalog of every dataset's spatial domain, grid resolution, time range, and available physical fields.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1882+ live data sources. This is an independent, unofficial integration — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or published by the upstream provider.

Tools

turbulence, channel flow, MHD turbulence, transitional boundary layer, atmospheric boundary layer and wind-farm LES, and more): spatial domain, grid resolution, time range, and available fields for each.

• jhtdb_datasets(...) — the full catalog of JHTDB datasets (forced isotropic

velocity-gradient values at up to 10 points and one time in a named dataset.

• jhtdbpointquery(...) — interpolated velocity, pressure, or

Auth

Keyless from the caller's point of view. This pack uses JHTDB's own public testing authorization token internally (documented by the publisher as valid for small queries), and caps every call at 10 points — well under the publisher's documented small-query allowance — so Pipeworx traffic does not load that shared testing quota. There is no BYO-key override: a full (non-testing) JHTDB token is an institutional request against the publisher and is out of scope for this pack unless demand for larger queries shows up.

Data sources

Science), Turbulence Databases (JHTDB) — direct numerical simulation (DNS) and large-eddy simulation (LES) of canonical turbulent flows (forced isotropic turbulence at several grid resolutions, channel flow, MHD turbulence, a homogeneous buoyancy-driven flow, a transitional boundary layer, rotating stratified turbulence, stably stratified atmospheric boundary layers, and wind-farm LES), queryable at arbitrary points and times via the publisher's own web service.

• Johns Hopkins University (Institute for Data Intensive Engineering and

The publisher's query interface is SOAP 1.1, not REST/JSON — there is no JSON point-query endpoint to fall back to. The SOAP envelope is built and parsed directly in src/index.ts (regex-based XML matching, consistent with how this codebase already handles SOAP/XML upstreams with no DOMParser available in the Workers runtime — see mcps/sdmx-structure).

The dataset catalog (domain extents, grid resolution, time range, available fields) is transcribed from the publisher's own machine-readable dataset configuration, not derived by probing the service — it is 17 small records, not a generated corpus, so it lives as a plain array in src/index.ts rather than going through the KV baked-index path.

Values are returned in each dataset's native simulation units: dimensionless DNS code units for the periodic-box datasets (isotropic turbulence, channel flow, MHD turbulence), physical SI units (meters, seconds, Pascals) for the atmospheric-boundary-layer and wind-farm LES datasets. jhtdbpointquery's response states which applies for the field just queried.

Dataset codes, enum values for spatial/temporal interpolation methods, and which physical fields each dataset carries are all exactly as the publisher's own API defines them — an interpolation-method typo (e.g. a plausible-looking FD4NoInt instead of the real None_Fd4) fails loudly with the publisher's own validation message rather than silently, which is how the correct enum values here were confirmed.

Quick Start

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

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "jhtdb": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/jhtdb/mcp"
    }
  }
}

What this endpoint actually serves

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.