MANNA

MANNA (MCP Architecture for NOIRLab, NRAO, and additional Archives) is an MCP server that gives LLM clients such as Claude Code, Claude Desktop, and Jupyter AI access to astronomical archives through the standard IVOA interfaces: TAP/ADQL, SIA image search, cone search, the IVOA registry, and Sesame name resolution. It includes curated notes for NOIRLab Astro Data Lab, ALMA, CADC, ESO, Gaia, and SDSS, and can reach any archive listed in the IVOA registry.

Its tools fall into four groups:

• Connections call the IVOA interfaces directly: resolve a target name, run an ADQL query, search for images or catalog sources by position, search the registry.
• Workflow tools do a multi-step task in one call: resolve a target, pick an archive, run the search or count.
• Result handling returns small results inline. A large TAP result becomes an async job, and the client receives a result URL and a pyvo snippet to fetch it. The server keeps nothing between requests.
• Archive notes record each archive's quirks (missing columns, enum values, spatial-index hints) so the model sees them before writing ADQL. Every note has a check that re-verifies it.

Full documentation, including the reference for every tool, is at https://manna.readthedocs.io.

Installation

Python 3.12 or later. The PyPI distribution is manna-mcp; the import package and the command are both manna.

uvx manna-mcp --stdio        # run without installing: MCP over stdio
pip install manna-mcp        # or install it; `manna` then serves HTTP on :8000

The first launch downloads astropy and pyvo, which takes a while. Run uvx manna-mcp --stdio once in a terminal before adding it to a client with a short startup timeout.

The Docker image and the MCP Registry entry are described under Installation.

Connect a client

Claude Code:

claude mcp add manna -- uvx manna-mcp --stdio

Claude Desktop, or any client with a JSON config:

{"mcpServers": {"manna": {"command": "uvx", "args": ["manna-mcp", "--stdio"]}}}

For a shared HTTP server or Jupyter AI, run manna and point the client at http://localhost:8000/mcp/.

Guides: Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Jupyter AI, a first query.

Configuration

All settings are optional and are read from MANNA_* environment variables or a .env file. The two most often changed:

• MANNA_ARCHIVES=datalab,alma limits which archives have curated notes. Unset means every archive except nrao, which is inactive until named here.
• MANNA_INLINE_ROW_LIMIT=2000 and MANNA_INLINE_BYTE_LIMIT=262144 raise the inline result caps from their small-model defaults to suit a large context window such as Claude's.

Every setting is listed in the configuration guide. Adding or removing an archive is covered in the archives guide.

Development

git clone https://github.com/NSF-Simons-CosmicAI-Institute/manna
cd manna
uv sync
uv run pytest --record-mode=none   # offline replay of recorded archive traffic
uv run python -m manna             # server on http://localhost:8000

Feature branches are cut from dev and merged back by pull request. Tests, linting, recorded cassettes, the docs build, and releases are described under Contributing.

License

MIT. Developed by the NSF-Simons CosmicAI Institute.