Ca Dmv MCP Server

@pipeworx/ca-dmv

California DMV data: registered vehicles and EV adoption by ZIP code, all 187 field offices with the services each performs, the official forms catalog, insurer NAIC codes, and licensed-driver counts by county. Keyless.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1856+ live data sources. This is an independent, unofficial integration — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or published by the upstream provider.

Why this is one state per pack

Part of the dmv category — one pack per state motor-vehicle agency. The states do not share a grain: California publishes a ZIP × make × model-year × fuel snapshot, New York a record-level file, Washington monthly transaction counts, Maryland county-months, Pennsylvania county-quarters. A single cross-state tool meant a schema where most arguments were ignored for most states and a "total" that was never comparable, so each agency gets its own tools with its own real arguments. For every DMV tool in one connection, use /mcp?vertical=dmv.

Tools

Auth

None. Every endpoint is public California state infrastructure. The CKAN-backed tools accept an optional CKAN API key, which the public datasets do not require.

Gotchas worth knowing

Live-verified behaviours, not guesses:

• Snapshots are one CKAN resource per year, 2019–2026, and the rows carry the prior December 31 as their as-of date — the "2026" file describes the fleet on 2025-12-31.
• Grouping by ZIP surfaces a literal OOS bucket — out-of-state registrants, ~638k vehicles — which outranks every real ZIP. Ignore it when ranking ZIPs; the tool flags it in note.
• OTHER/UNK is a real make value that absorbs small-count suppression and can outrank genuine makes in a by-make ranking.
• total_vehicles appears only when it is honest. Grouping by fuel returns every category, so its sum is the true fleet total; any other grouping can be cut off by limit, and those responses carry sum_of_returned_rows plus truncated instead.
• Fuel labels are specific strings (Battery Electric, Plug-in Hybrid, Hybrid Gasoline, Diesel and Diesel Hybrid, Hydrogen Fuel Cell). Plain words like "electric", "phev" or "hydrogen" are mapped for you.
• Form search uses the DMV site's own relevance ranking, so a broad phrase like "title transfer" can put a vessel-title form above the vehicle one.
• California publishes no wait-time feed. Only North Carolina (nc-dmv) and Oregon (or-dmv) do; ca_dmv_offices returns posted hours instead.
• Lien lookup and appointment booking are unavailable: the lien endpoint requires a reCAPTCHA token and appointments run on a session-based kiosk system.

Data sources

• Vehicle Fuel Type Count by Zip Code — data.ca.gov CKAN, datastore_search_sql
• Driver Licenses Outstanding by County — data.ca.gov CKAN
• Field office directory — dmv.ca.gov WP REST, hours and per-office service tags
• Forms catalog — dmv.ca.gov WP REST
• Insurance carrier NAIC lookup — https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wp-json/dmv/v1/naic-lookup?s=<name>

Quick Start

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

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ca-dmv": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/ca-dmv/mcp"
    }
  }
}

What this endpoint actually serves

tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/ca-dmv/mcp returns the tools in the table above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx, discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and is the authoritative answer for a given day.

This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth, connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.

Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:

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

Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1856+ data sources. The only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx reaches all of them from either one.

No MCP client? Call it over HTTP

curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/ca_dmv_vehicle_registrations \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"zip":"94002"}'

No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/ca_dmv_vehicle_registrations. Find one: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs with {"query":"..."}.

Run it from npm

@pipeworx/mcp-ca-dmv is a local stdio bridge to the Pipeworx gateway: your MCP client starts it with npx, and it forwards every call to the same https://gateway.pipeworx.io/ca-dmv/mcp endpoint shown above. It needs network access; there is no offline mode.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ca-dmv": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-ca-dmv"]
    }
  }
}

Without a key it calls anonymously, capped at 50 calls a day. A free account raises that to 200 a day: get a key at https://pipeworx.io/signup and add "env": { "PIPEWORX_API_KEY": "<your key>" } to the server entry. The key is sent as a Bearer token, the same way a hosted connection sends it, so calls are metered and billed exactly as they are there.

It lists only this pack's tools by default. Set PIPEWORX_META_TOOLS=1 to also list ask_pipeworx and the other gateway-wide tools.

Behind an HTTPS proxy: Node's built-in fetch does not read HTTPS_PROXY by default. Newer Node releases honour it when NODE_USE_ENV_PROXY=1 is set; check your Node version's documentation.

Using with ask_pipeworx

Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:

ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about Ca Dmv data" })

The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.

More

• Docs and guides
• pipeworx.io

License

MIT