MCP Overview

VoLCA implements the Model Context Protocol (MCP spec 2025-03-26), exposing tools that let AI agents search databases, analyze supply chains, and compute impact assessment scores. MCP Tools lists every one of them, generated from the engine itself.

What you can do

• Let Claude browse and explain your LCA database in natural language
• Ask “what are the top contributors to climate change in this product?”
• Run hotspot analyses, supply chain explorations, and mapping checks - all via chat
• Adjust an imported dataset to the study at hand: drop a substance your scope excludes, correct an amount. Only in a database of your own - ask for a copy first, and a database the engine reads from its configuration is refused

Connecting ChatGPT

In ChatGPT, go to the MCP / connectors settings and add a new custom connector.

Use these values:

• Name: VoLCA
• Server URL: http://localhost:8080/mcp
• Authentication type: Bearer token
• Bearer token: your VoLCA password

That is all most people need. You do not need to edit JSON manually.

Connecting Claude

In Claude settings, add a new MCP server.

Use these values:

• Name: volca
• Server URL: http://localhost:8080/mcp
• Authentication: Authorization header
• Header value: Bearer yourpassword

In other words:

• header name: Authorization
• header value: Bearer yourpassword

Connecting Claude Code (CLI)

If you use Claude Code in the terminal, run:

claude mcp add volca --transport http http://localhost:8080/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer yourpassword"

Connecting Cursor

Cursor still expects MCP JSON configuration, so add this to .cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "volca": {
      "url": "http://localhost:8080/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer yourpassword"
      }
    }
  }
}

Protocol details

• Transport: Streamable HTTP (POST to /mcp)
• Protocol version: 2025-03-26
• Authentication: Same password as the HTTP API (Bearer token in header)
• Response format: JSON-RPC 2.0

Example interaction

Once connected, you can ask Claude:

“Find electricity production in France in the ecoinvent database and compute its climate change score using EF3.1”

Claude will:

1. Call search_activities with name="electricity", geo="FR", database="ecoinvent"
2. Call list_methods to find the EF3.1 climate change method UUID
3. Call get_impacts with the found process ID and method
4. Return a formatted answer with the score and top contributing flows

See MCP Tools for the full tool reference.