# BGPScout.io - full reference > This is the expanded companion to https://bgpscout.io/llms.txt. Read that > file first for the short version; read this one for methodology, data > caveats, and per-category detail on what the MCP server can answer. BGPScout is operated by Hive Data Center Inc., a Montreal-based data center operator. It combines its own traceroute measurements with registry, PeeringDB and routing data to answer questions about how networks actually interconnect - not just what they declare in a database that anyone can edit. The product is built MCP-first: `https://bgpscout.io/mcp` is the primary interface. The web portal and public REST API expose the same underlying data. ## Connecting an AI assistant - **Endpoint:** `https://bgpscout.io/mcp` - **Auth:** API key (`X-API-Key` header) for Claude Code, Cursor and OpenWebUI; OAuth 2.0 with PKCE for ChatGPT and claude.ai connectors. Get a key at https://bgpscout.io/account. - **Discovery:** `https://bgpscout.io/.well-known/mcp.json` (server metadata, computed live) and `https://bgpscout.io/mcp/openapi.json` (one operation per tool, also computed live - this is the authoritative machine-readable tool list, and it cannot go stale the way a document like this one can, because nothing here re-types it). - **Rate limit:** 60 requests/minute per API key (or per IP unauthenticated). - **Per-client setup, with exact commands:** https://bgpscout.io/docs/api#mcp - **Worked, real examples with actual tool calls and output:** https://bgpscout.io/mcp-demo Client configuration, config-file style (Cursor and anything else reading `.mcp.json`): ```json { "mcpServers": { "bgpscout": { "type": "http", "url": "https://bgpscout.io/mcp", "headers": { "X-API-Key": "YOUR_API_KEY" } } } } ``` ## What the MCP server can answer, by category Every category below maps to a group in the live tool catalogue (`https://bgpscout.io/docs/api#mcp`, or call the `list_tools` tool from inside a conversation with an optional `category` filter). Descriptions here are illustrative, not exhaustive - the live catalogue is the source of truth for exact tool names, parameters and current caveats. - **ASN lookup & compare** - "What is AS13335?" "Compare AS7922 and AS20115 side by side." "How many PoPs does this network have?" - **ASN presence** - facilities, IXPs, CDN edge caches, transit providers, announced prefixes, and IPv6 reachability EVIDENCE (not just whether a network announces v6 space - whether a v6 address there has actually answered a probe). - **Peering recommendations** - which IXPs or peers a network should pursue, filtered to candidates it can physically reach (shares a facility, or is already on a shared exchange), not just popularity. - **IP & prefix whois** - routing, geolocation, registration, RPKI status and reverse DNS for an IPv4/IPv6 address, a CIDR, or a hostname, in one call. - **Registry allocations & transfers** - what ARIN/RIPE NCC/APNIC/LACNIC/ AFRINIC delegated, when, to whom, and (for transfers) who it came from and whether it was a market sale or a merger/acquisition. - **Geographic search** - "Which networks have IP presence near this address?" "Who is in a data centre in this metro?" "Who peers at an exchange near here?" - answered from different, explicitly-labelled data layers (geolocated IP footprint vs. PeeringDB facility presence vs. IXP membership), because they are not the same question. - **Change feed** - new ASN registrations, IP allocations, ownership transfers, IXP joins/leaves and speed changes, facility presence changes, CDN cache changes. - **Growth & trends** - fastest-growing or -declining networks by new facility presence, new IXP presence, or new address space over 30/90/365 days. - **IXP & facility data** - exchange and building-level membership, port speeds, and full facility detail pages - who else is in this building, and its own change-feed slice. - **CDN footprint** - which networks host which CDN providers' edge caches, and where the located ones physically sit. - **Traceroute & routing analysis** - boomerang route detection (domestic traffic taking a foreign detour), city-to-city route heatmaps, per-country routing-quality scoreboards, and a curated Tier-1 transit-provider comparison. - **Network relationships** - shared-facility co-location, observed transit customers, and sibling ASNs under the same organisation. - **Sales prospecting & lead scoring** - transit/colocation/IXP/network-health prospecting, buy-signal detection, RPKI-adoption upsell opportunities, personalised outreach copy. - **Domain intelligence** - which network hosts a given domain, and DNS-level detail behind that. - **Your saved data** - watchlists (ASNs and IXPs), alert rules, saved searches, auto-scout, favourites, and pinned dashboard cards. - **Write actions** - manage watchlists, alert rules, saved searches, CRM clients/prospect tags, seller profile and org assets directly from a conversation, with the same per-tenant authorisation the web portal enforces. ## Data caveats an agent should carry into its answers These are not edge cases - they are the difference between a correct answer and a confidently wrong one, and the tool descriptions in the live catalogue repeat them at the point they apply: - **Absent is not zero.** A network with no recorded observation is UNMEASURED, not "has none of this." Tools distinguish "we did not collect this" from "there is none" wherever the underlying data allows it. - **BGP AS_PATH adjacency does not label relationships.** An observed adjacency between two ASNs may be transit, settlement-free peering, or a sibling relationship - AS_PATH alone cannot say which. - **IXP co-presence is an opportunity, not a peer list.** Two networks on the same exchange fabric can share zero traffic. - **"Announces IPv6" and "IPv6 works" are different claims.** BGPScout separates the two, ranked by strength of evidence from a routed announcement up to a completed TCP handshake into the network's own space. - **A location field says what kind of location it is.** A resolved point may be a geocoded street address, a data-centre facility, an exchange, or a country centroid - never presented as more precise than it is. ## Public pages - [Home](https://bgpscout.io/) - what the platform covers, with live counts. - [Pricing](https://bgpscout.io/pricing) - tier comparison; every listed limit is the limit the code enforces. - [MCP demos](https://bgpscout.io/mcp-demo) - real BGP questions answered through ChatGPT or Claude, with the actual tool calls and output shown. - [API & MCP documentation](https://bgpscout.io/docs/api) - REST endpoints, the embeddable widget, and MCP setup for each client, with a live-rendered tool catalogue. - [Data sources](https://bgpscout.io/data-sources) - where each data set comes from, and the attribution RIPE RIS and RouteViews require. - [Login / create an account](https://bgpscout.io/login) - free, no credit card. Everything else on the site requires an account, `/about` included. That page reads like a marketing page but is a member page - its main control generates an API key - and it appeared in robots.txt and sitemap.xml as public until it was removed from both. Those files now describe what the server actually serves. ## The platform, in numbers (measured against the live production database) - **100,000+** active ASNs across **240+** countries - **1,300+** Internet Exchange Points, **5,700+** data-centre facilities - **200,000+** located CDN edge-cache nodes across **6,500+** networks with a detected CDN presence - **340,000+** traceroutes, from probes in 140+ countries - **43,000+** domains mapped to their hosting network Exact, dated counts from the production database, not estimates. Ask the live site rather than trusting this snapshot once it is old: https://bgpscout.io/ ## Data sources - Traceroute measurements from probes in 140+ countries - RIPE RIS and RouteViews BGP data (attribution: see /data-sources) - PeeringDB facility and IXP membership data - ARIN, RIPE NCC, APNIC, LACNIC and AFRINIC registry data - Certificate Transparency logs for domain intelligence - Geolocation from geofeed, IPinfo and MaxMind, with the winning source recorded per resolved location ## Company - Website: https://bgpscout.io - Email: hello@bgpscout.io - Company: Hive Data Center Inc., Montreal, Canada --- Maintained by Hive Data Center Inc. This is the expanded companion that llms.txt requests. Same rule as the short file: no MCP tool count is typed here as a literal number - it is computed live at `/.well-known/mcp.json` and `/mcp/openapi.json`, and documented at `/docs/api#mcp`. If this file and `/llms.txt` ever disagree on anything other than depth of detail, one of them has drifted; fix whichever it is rather than trusting either from memory.