Agent quickstart

Connect an MCP client to Olympus and make a first tool call in four steps.

1. Create an account (and, for key-based clients, an API key)

   Sign up. The Free plan includes every live API. Then create a key in the console. Your agent uses the same key as your code. You can scope a key to one product to limit what the agent can call.

   export OLYMPUS_API_KEY="oly_live_..."

2. Add the MCP server

   The server speaks Streamable HTTP at https://mcp.olympus.new-odyssey.com/mcp. Clients that take a JSON configuration:

   {
     "mcpServers": {
       "olympus": {
         "type": "http",
         "url": "https://mcp.olympus.new-odyssey.com/mcp",
         "headers": {
           "X-API-Key": "${OLYMPUS_API_KEY}"
         }
       }
     }
   }

   Claude Code:

   claude mcp add --transport http olympus https://mcp.olympus.new-odyssey.com/mcp \
     --header "X-API-Key: $OLYMPUS_API_KEY"

   Or sign in with OAuth. Add the server URL without a key. Clients that support MCP authorization (OAuth 2.1) register themselves and open the Olympus consent screen. There you choose the organization and the APIs the client may use. The client then refreshes its tokens on its own. Connected apps are listed in the console under Connected apps, where you can revoke them.

   claude mcp add --transport http olympus https://mcp.olympus.new-odyssey.com/mcp

   Without a key or token the server answers with an OAuth sign-in challenge. The machine-readable descriptions (llms.txt, registry.json) need no credentials.

3. Call a tool

   Your client lists 7 tools. Each has an input schema and an output schema, and its description states coverage limits and failure cases. A raw tools/call request:

   {
     "jsonrpc": "2.0",
     "id": 2,
     "method": "tools/call",
     "params": {
       "name": "lookup_us_sales_tax",
       "arguments": {
         "zip": "68508",
         "state": "NE"
       }
     }
   }

   Results come back as structured content: the REST response's data, meta.datasets (provenance), coverage, notices and the request_id. From the TypeScript SDK:

   import { Client } from "@modelcontextprotocol/sdk/client/index.js";
   import { StreamableHTTPClientTransport } from "@modelcontextprotocol/sdk/client/streamableHttp.js";
   
   const client = new Client({ name: "my-agent", version: "1.0.0" });
   await client.connect(
     new StreamableHTTPClientTransport(new URL("https://mcp.olympus.new-odyssey.com/mcp"), {
       requestInit: { headers: { "X-API-Key": process.env.OLYMPUS_API_KEY! } },
     }),
   );
   
   const { tools } = await client.listTools();
   const result = await client.callTool({
     name: "get_us_demographics",
     arguments: { zcta: "02139" },
   });
   console.log(result.structuredContent); // data, provenance, coverage, request_id

4. Watch your quota

   Every tool call that reaches a data endpoint counts as one request against that product's monthly quota. get_remaining_usage shows what is left. So does:

   curl -s "https://api.olympus.new-odyssey.com/v1/usage/remaining" \
     -H "X-API-Key: $OLYMPUS_API_KEY"

Without MCP

Agents that call HTTP directly can use the REST API with the same key. Each tool maps to a documented endpoint (see registry.json). The OpenAPI contracts are listed at /openapi.json.

curl -s "https://api.olympus.new-odyssey.com/v1/sales-tax/rates/zip/68508?state=NE" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $OLYMPUS_API_KEY" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: $(uuidgen)"

A retry with the same Idempotency-Key within an hour is not counted again.