What is QGIS Model Context Protocol Integration

QGISMCP is an integration that links QGIS with Claude AI through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), enabling Claude to interact with and control QGIS. This tool streamlines project creation, layer management, and code execution, enhancing geographic data analysis workflows.

Use cases

QGISMCP is useful for users who need to automate GIS tasks, such as project creation, data visualization, or executing complex geospatial processing without manual intervention. It allows rapid testing of data layers and performing analyses directly through AI, making it applicable in urban planning, environmental studies, and academic research.

How to use

To use QGISMCP, first install the QGIS plugin and set up the MCP server. Start the server in QGIS, and then configure Claude to connect to the server. Once connected, users can issue commands to create projects, load layers, execute processes, and render maps, all facilitated by natural language prompts.

Key features

QGISMCP offers two-way communication between Claude AI and QGIS, project manipulation capabilities, layer management, execution of processing algorithms, and the ability to run arbitrary Python code. This makes it a highly flexible tool for geospatial data analysis and visualization.

Where to use

QGISMCP can be applied in various fields, including urban planning, environmental monitoring, and geographical research. It is suitable for any setting where automated GIS tasks are beneficial, particularly in organizations and laboratories focused on spatial data and analysis.

QGISMCP - QGIS Model Context Protocol Integration

QGISMCP connects QGIS to Claude AI through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), allowing Claude to directly interact with and control QGIS. This integration enables prompt assisted project creation, layer loading, code execution and more.

This project is strongly based on the BlenderMCP project by Siddharth Ahuja

Features

• Two-way communication: Connect Claude AI to QGIS through a socket-based server.
• Project manipulation: Create, load and save projects in QGIS.
• Layer manipulation: Add and remove vector or raster layers to a project.
• Execute processing: Execute processing algorithms (Processing Toolbox).
• Code execution: Run arbitrary Python code in QGIS from Claude. Very powerful, but also be very cautious using this tool.

Components

The system consists of two main components:

1. QGIS plugin: A QGIS plugin that creates a socket server within QGIS to receive and execute commands.
2. MCP Server: A Python server that implements the Model Context Protocol and connects to the QGIS plugin.

Installation

Prerequisites

• QGIS 3.X (only tested on 3.22)
• Cloud desktop
• Python 3.10 or newer
• uv package manager:

If you’re on Mac, please install uv as

brew install uv

On Windows Powershell

powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"

Otherwise installation instructions are on their website: Install uv

⚠️ Do not proceed before installing UV

Download code

Download this repo to your computer. You can clone it with:

git clone [email protected]:jjsantos01/qgis_mcp.git

QGIS plugin

You need to copy the folder qgis_mcp_plugin and its content on your QGIS profile plugins folder.

You can get your profile folder in QGIS going to menu Settings -> User profiles -> Open active profile folder Then, go to Python/plugins and paste the folder qgis_mcp_plugin.

On a Windows machine the plugins folder is usually located at:
C:\Users\USER\AppData\Roaming\QGIS\QGIS3\profiles\default\python\plugins and on MacOS:
~/Library/Application\ Support/QGIS/QGIS3/profiles/default/python/plugins

Then close QGIS and open it again. Go to the menu option Plugins -> Installing and Managing Plugins, select the All tab and search for “QGIS MCP”, then mark the QGIS MCP checkbox.

Claude for Desktop Integration

Go to Claude > Settings > Developer > Edit Config > claude_desktop_config.json to include the following:

If you cann’t find the “Developers tab” or the claude_desktop_config.json look at this documentation.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "qgis": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "--directory",
        "/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/PARENT/REPO/FOLDER/qgis_mcp/src/qgis_mcp",
        "run",
        "qgis_mcp_server.py"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Usage

Starting the Connection

1. In QGIS, go to plugins -> QGIS MCP-> QGIS MCP
   
2. Click “Start Server”
   

Using with Claude

Once the config file has been set on Claude, and the server is running on QGIS, you will see a hammer icon with tools for the QGIS MCP.

Tools

• ping - Simple ping command to check server connectivity
• get_qgis_info - Get QGIS information about the current installation
• load_project - Load a QGIS project from the specified path
• create_new_project - Create a new project and save it
• get_project_info - Get current project information
• add_vector_layer - Add a vector layer to the project
• add_raster_layer - Add a raster layer to the project
• get_layers - Retrieve all layers in the current project
• remove_layer - Remove a layer from the project by its ID
• zoom_to_layer - Zoom to the extent of a specified layer
• get_layer_features - Retrieve features from a vector layer with an optional limit
• execute_processing - Execute a processing algorithm with the given parameters
• save_project - Save the current project to the given path
• render_map - Render the current map view to an image file
• execute_code - Execute arbitrary PyQGIS code provided as a string

Example Commands

This is the example I used for the demo:

You have access to the tools to work with QGIS. You will do the following:
	1. Ping to check the connection. If it works, continue with the following steps.
	2. Create a new project and save it at: "C:/Users/USER/GitHub/qgis_mcp/data/cdmx.qgz"
	3. Load the vector layer: ""C:/Users/USER/GitHub/qgis_mcp/data/cdmx/mgpc_2019.shp" and name it "Colonias".
	4. Load the raster layer: "C:/Users/USER/GitHub/qgis_mcp/data/09014.tif" and name it "BJ"
	5. Zoom to the "BJ" layer.
	6. Execute the centroid algorithm on the "Colonias" layer. Skip the geometry check. Save the output to "colonias_centroids.geojson".
	7. Execute code to create a choropleth map using the "POB2010" field in the "Colonias" layer. Use the quantile classification method with 5 classes and the Spectral color ramp.
	8. Render the map to "C:/Users/USER/GitHub/qgis_mcp/data/cdmx.png"
	9. Save the project.