Use MCP

This page describes how to run a local agent and connect to a Data Commons MCP server to query datacommons.org, using the centrally hosted server at https://api.datacommons.org/mcp.

For advanced use cases, such as developing a custom agent, Run a self-hosted MCP server describes how to run your own local server and connect to it from an agent.

For procedures for Custom Data Commons instances, please see instead Use MCP tools.

Prerequisites
Use Google Antigravity
Use the sample agent
Sample queries

We provide specific instructions for the following clients:

Google Antigravity (CLI or IDE)
A sample basic agent based on the Google Agent Development Kit

For other clients/agents, see the relevant documentation; you should be able to easily adapt the configurations detailed here.

Prerequisites

This is required for all agents, regardless of the server deployment:

A (free) Data Commons API key. To obtain an API key, go to https://apikeys.datacommons.org and request a key for the api.datacommons.org domain.

Use Google Antigravity

Download and install Google Antigravity from https://antigravity.google/download.

To configure Antigravity to connect to the Data Commons server, use the IDE or a text editor to open ~/.gemini/config/mcp_config.json and add the following:

{
   "mcpServers": {
      "datacommons-mcp": {
         "serverUrl": "https://api.datacommons.org/mcp",
         "headers": {
            "X-API-Key": "YOUR_DATA_COMMONS_API_KEY"
         }
      }
   }
}

Run the IDE or CLI as usual.
Start sending natural-language queries.

To see the Data Commons tools, use /mcp tools. To see the Data Commons resources, use /mcp resources.

Tip: Data Commons provides a set of agent skills as server resources, so you don’t need to provide any Data Commons-specific customizations.

Use the sample agent

Additional prerequisites

In addition to the Data Commons API key, you will need:

Git installed.
uv, a Python package manager, installed.

Tip: You do not need to install the Google ADK; when you use the command we provide to start the agent, it downloads the ADK dependencies at run time.

Install

From the desired directory, clone the agent-toolkit repo:

git clone https://github.com/datacommonsorg/agent-toolkit.git

Run

Go to the root directory of the repo:
```
cd agent-toolkit
```
Run the agent using one of the following methods.

Web UI (recommended)

Run the following command:

uvx --from google-adk adk web ./packages/datacommons-mcp/examples/sample_agents/

Point your browser to the address and port displayed on the screen (e.g. http://127.0.0.1:8000/). The Agent Development Kit Dev UI is displayed.
From the Type a message box, type your query for Data Commons or select another action.

Command line interface

Run the following command:

uvx --from google-adk adk run ./packages/datacommons-mcp/examples/sample_agents/basic_agent

Enter your queries at the User prompt in the terminal.

Customize the agent

To customize the sample agent, you can make changes directly to the Python files. You’ll need to restart the agent any time you make changes.

Customize the model

To change to a different LLM or model version, edit the AGENT_MODEL constant in packages/datacommons-mcp/examples/sample_agents/basic_agent/agent.py.

Customize agent behavior

The agent’s behavior is determined by prompts provided in the AGENT_INSTRUCTIONS in packages/datacommons-mcp/examples/sample_agents/basic_agent/instructions.py.

You can add your own prompts to modify how the client processes the results of tool calls. See the Google ADK page on LLM agent instructions for tips on how to write good prompts.

Tip: Data Commons provides a set of agent skills as server resources, so you don’t need to provide any Data Commons-specific instructions.

Sample queries

The Data Commons MCP tools excel at natural-language queries that involve:

Comparisons between two or more entities, such as countries or metrics
Exploring data available for a given topic

Here are some examples of such queries:

“What health data do you have for Africa?”
“What data do you have on water quality in Zimbabwe?”
“Compare the life expectancy, economic inequality, and GDP growth for BRICS nations.”
“Generate a concise report on income vs diabetes in US counties.”

Page last updated: September 02, 2026 • Send feedback about this page