Zato Government data, served to agents

Government data your agent can cite.

Zato serves government datasets to AI agents over MCP. There are nine on the shelf right now, all space data. Every response carries provenance and whatever citation the publisher requires, and the archived source bytes behind it stay downloadable.

This data is public and free. Zato does the record-keeping around it. Every pull is archived and stays re-downloadable, every type conversion is declared column by column, and the citation is attached by the server on the way out, so the model never has to supply one.

On the shelf

The publishers so far are Space-Track, CelesTrak, and NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. Nothing goes on the shelf until someone has written its notes and its typing manifest.

  • spacetrack_gp

    Space-Track.org GP/OMM element sets, full on-orbit catalog

    Element sets for every propagable object on orbit, as USSPACECOM publishes them.

  • spacetrack_decay

    Space-Track.org decay/reentry messages

    Decay and reentry messages covering the trailing 365 days.

  • spacetrack_tip

    Space-Track.org Tracking and Impact Prediction (TIP) messages

    Reentry predictions, with the tightening impact windows issued as an object comes down.

  • celestrak_gp

    CelesTrak GP (active satellites)

    CelesTrak's own element sets for the active satellites, distributed as CSV.

  • celestrak_satcat

    CelesTrak SATCAT (satellite catalog)

    The full satellite catalog, decayed objects included. Most of the rows are objects that have already reentered, so a row count here is not a count of what is on orbit.

  • swpc_alerts

    Space weather alerts, watches and warnings (SWPC)

    NOAA's issued space weather alerts, watches and warnings.

  • swpc_kp

    NOAA planetary K-index (SWPC, estimated)

    NOAA's estimated planetary K-index, the 3-hourly measure of global geomagnetic activity.

  • swpc_rtsw_mag

    NOAA real-time solar wind — magnetometer, 1-minute (SWPC)

    Solar wind magnetic field, one sample a minute, upwind of Earth. Several spacecraft report the same minute, and the active column marks NOAA's operational feed.

  • swpc_goes_xray

    GOES X-ray flux, 1-day (SWPC)

    GOES X-ray flux in two energy bands, one row per band per minute. Flare classes, A through X, are read from the long band.

Each one comes with notes we wrote by hand. They say which fields we kept and which we dropped, what the publisher's terms require, and where the coverage runs out.

How it works

Zato does not normalize across datasets, geocode, or enrich. There is no canonical schema laid over them and no entity graph, so if you need to join across them that happens on your side.

Snapshots

Every pull is archived byte for byte and stays downloadable for at least a year. The store is immutable. A snapshot your agent cited last month returns the same bytes today, and anything built on top of it can be checked back against the file the agency actually served.

How values get typed

Values are typed on ingest, so dates sort and numbers compare in SQL. Identifier columns stay text, leading zeros and all, because casting them to integers invents a different identifier. Every conversion is declared per column in a typing manifest, and a load only goes through if the served values can be re-derived from the raw bytes exactly.

Citations

Every record carries its source agency, source URL, retrieval timestamp, and acquisition method. The server attaches the publisher's required citation on any path that returns source-derived content, including an aggregate query that comes back as a single number rather than rows.

Connect

Zato is one MCP endpoint. Access is by invitation while the pilot runs; once you have it, add the URL below as a custom connector and sign in.

https://mcp.zatolibrary.com/mcp
Claude
Add the URL as a custom connector in your Claude settings, then sign in when prompted.
ChatGPT
Add the same URL as a custom connector in developer mode, then sign in when prompted.

Your agent gets six read-only tools: list the datasets, describe one, run one SQL statement against it, fetch a single record, list that dataset's archived snapshots, and download one.

Sign-in is OAuth, and every request is authenticated.

The name

Zato is named for Zatocoding, an early mechanized information-retrieval scheme. Calvin Mooers designed it in the 1940s and commercialized it through his Zator Company.

It worked by superimposing random codes onto edge-notched cards. You put a needle through the deck at one position and the cards notched there dropped out.

Design partners

Zato is running a pilot with a small group of design partners. If your agents need government data they can cite, write to hello@zatolibrary.com.

Ask for pilot access