Bring Satellite Imagery
to Claude Desktop
Learn how to connect Upstream Lens to Claude Desktop and start using 8 AI agent tools in minutes. Fully managed, enterprise secure, and ready to use without writing a single line of code.
What is the Upstream Lens MCP Server?
Connect your Upstream Tech Lens account to any AI agent and simplify how you monitor conservation projects, analyze satellite imagery, and track environmental changes through natural conversation.
What you can do
- Project & Portfolio Oversight — List all environmental projects and portfolios to manage your conservation assets.
- Imagery Analysis — Query available satellite imagery layers (Sentinel, Landsat, etc.) for specific property features.
- Geospatial Insights — Fetch detailed metadata and field observations for properties to track ground-truth data.
- Environmental Monitoring — List project notes and observations to keep a record of changes over time.
- Organization Management — Retrieve Lens organization profiles and verify account configurations.
- Operational Status — Check API health and connectivity to ensure your monitoring engine is always active.
How it works
1. Subscribe to this server
2. Enter your Upstream Tech Lens API Key (found in your account dashboard)
3. Start monitoring your environmental assets from Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client
Who is this for?
- Conservation Managers — quickly retrieve field notes and check satellite imagery availability via simple AI queries.
- Environmental Analysts — monitor changes in property features and verify geospatial metadata directly from the workspace.
- Sustainability Teams — track project observations and maintain an organized portfolio of environmental monitoring sites.
Built-in capabilities (8)
Check Lens API health
Get organization metadata
Get details for a specific property feature
List all portfolios
Can be filtered by update date. List observations and notes for a project
List detailed project observations
List all environmental projects
) for a specific property. List available imagery layers for a property
Why Claude Desktop?
Claude Desktop is the definitive way to connect Upstream Lens to your AI workflow. Add Vinkius Edge URL to your config, restart the app, and Claude immediately exposes all 8 tools in the chat interface. ask a question, Claude calls the right tool, and you see the answer. Zero code, zero context switching.
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Claude Desktop is the reference MCP client. it was designed alongside the protocol itself, ensuring the most complete and stable MCP implementation available
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Zero-code configuration: add a server URL to a JSON file and Claude instantly discovers and exposes all available tools in the chat interface
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Claude's extended thinking capability lets it reason through multi-step tool usage, chaining multiple API calls to answer complex questions
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Enterprise-grade security with local config storage. your tokens never leave your machine, and connections go directly to Vinkius Edge network
Upstream Lens in Claude Desktop
Upstream Lens and 3,400+ other MCP servers. One platform. One governance layer.
Teams that connect Upstream Lens to Claude Desktop through Vinkius don't need to source, host, or maintain individual MCP servers. Every tool call runs inside a hardened runtime with credential isolation, DLP, and a signed audit chain.
Raw MCP | Vinkius | |
|---|---|---|
| Server catalog | Find and host yourself | 3,400+ managed |
| Infrastructure | Self-hosted | Sandboxed V8 isolates |
| Credential handling | Plaintext in config | Vault + runtime injection |
| Data loss prevention | None | Configurable DLP policies |
| Kill switch | None | Global instant shutdown |
| Financial circuit breakers | None | Per-server limits + alerts |
| Audit trail | None | Ed25519 signed logs |
| SIEM log streaming | None | Splunk, Datadog, Webhook |
| Honeytokens | None | Canary alerts on leak |
| Custom domains | Not applicable | DNS challenge verified |
| GDPR compliance | Manual effort | Automated purge + export |
Why teams choose Vinkius for Upstream Lens in Claude Desktop
The Upstream Lens MCP Server runs on Vinkius-managed infrastructure inside AWS — a purpose-built runtime with per-request V8 isolates, Ed25519 signed audit chains, and sub-40ms cold starts. All 8 tools execute in hardened sandboxes optimized for native MCP execution.
Your AI agents in Claude Desktop only access the data you authorize, with DLP that blocks sensitive information from ever reaching the model, kill switch for instant shutdown, and up to 60% token savings. Enterprise-grade infrastructure, zero maintenance.
* Every MCP server runs on Vinkius-managed infrastructure inside AWS - a purpose-built runtime with per-request V8 isolates, Ed25519 signed audit chains, and sub-40ms cold starts optimized for native MCP execution. See our infrastructure
How Vinkius secures
Upstream Lens for Claude Desktop
Every tool call from Claude Desktop to the Upstream Lens MCP Server is protected by DLP redaction, cryptographic audit chains, V8 sandbox isolation, kill switch, and financial circuit breakers.
Frequently asked questions
Can I see if new satellite images are available for my project?
Yes! Use the list_property_imagery tool and provide the Property ID. Your agent will retrieve all available imagery layers (Sentinel, Landsat, etc.) with their respective capture dates.
How do I retrieve field notes for a specific conservation project?
Run the list_project_notes query with your Project ID. You can also provide an optional timestamp to filter only notes updated after a specific date.
Is it possible to see the geospatial metadata for a property feature?
Absolutely. Use the get_property_details tool with the Feature ID to retrieve detailed geospatial data and metadata for any monitored property.
How does Claude Desktop discover MCP tools?
When Claude Desktop starts, it reads the claude_desktop_config.json file and connects to each configured MCP server. It calls the tools/list endpoint to fetch the schema for every available tool, then surfaces them as clickable options in the chat interface via the 🔌 icon.
What happens if the MCP server is temporarily unavailable?
Claude Desktop handles disconnections gracefully. if the server is unreachable at startup, the tools simply won't appear. Once the server becomes available again, restarting Claude Desktop will re-establish the connection. There is no timeout penalty or error loop.
Can I connect multiple MCP servers simultaneously?
Yes. You can add as many servers as you need in the mcpServers section of the config file. Each server appears as a separate tool provider, and Claude can use tools from multiple servers in a single conversation turn.
Is there a limit on the number of tools per server?
Claude Desktop can handle hundreds of tools per server. However, for optimal LLM performance, Vinkius servers are designed to expose focused, well-documented tool sets rather than overwhelming the model with too many options.
Does Claude Desktop support Streamable HTTP transport?
Yes. Claude Desktop supports both SSE (Server-Sent Events) and the newer Streamable HTTP transport that Vinkius uses. Simply provide the server URL. Claude auto-negotiates the transport protocol.
Server not appearing after restart
Ensure the JSON is valid (no trailing commas). Check the file path: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\\Claude\\ (Windows).
Authentication error
Verify your Vinkius token is correct. Go to cloud.vinkius.com to regenerate it if needed.
Tools not showing in chat
Click the 🔌 icon at the bottom of the chat input. If it shows 0 tools, the server may still be connecting. wait a few seconds.