Maps Grounding Lite is Google Maps Platform's MCP service for grounding AI apps in geospatial data. It provides place search with AI summaries and Place IDs, current and forecast weather, and route distance and duration. It authenticates with OAuth or an API key in the X-Goog-Api-Key header.
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- 1Connect it in ChatGPT
Turn on Developer mode in ChatGPT (Settings → Security and login), open Plugins, select + and paste https://mapstools.googleapis.com/mcp as the MCP server URL. Add it to a chat from the composer's tools menu.
- 2Or add it to Codex or the API
codex mcp add google-maps-grounding-lite --url https://mapstools.googleapis.com/mcp --bearer-token-env-var GOOGLE_MAPS_GROUNDING_LITE_API_KEY
Configs are generated from the publisher's documented endpoint. Check their docs for plan requirements and scopes. New to this? Read the step-by-step tutorial.
Tools 3
search_placeslookup_weathercompute_routesThings to ask
- “Find highly rated ramen restaurants near Shibuya”
- “What's the weather forecast for Denver this weekend?”
- “How long is the drive from Boston to Portland, Maine?”
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