Compose Mapbox MCP tools to produce grounded, cited location-aware responses from live data instead of training data

Mapbox Location Grounding Skill Teaches AI assistants how to ground location aware responses in live Mapbox data by composing MCP tools into a structured, cited answer. Use this instead of relying on training data for place names, POIs, ratings, or travel times — which are stale and prone to hallucination. When to Use Grounding Ground responses when the user asks about: "What's near [location]?" or "What's around [coordinate]?" "Describe this neighborhood / area" "Find [category] within walking/driving distance" "What can I do near [address]?" "How long does it take to get from A to B?" "What's within a 10 minute walk of here?" "How far is it between these locations?" Real estate, travel, mobility, or local discovery use cases Any question where place accuracy, recency, or travel time matters Never answer location questions from training data alone. Always retrieve live data. Grounding Tool Composition Preferred: single tool call If ground location tool is available, use it — it handles reverse geocoding, POI search, place details enrichment, isochrone, and a static map image in one call: Returns: Neighborhood/place name from reverse geocoding Nearby POIs with distances, ratings, price levels, and popularity (when available) Travel time reachability from isochrone A static map image for visual context Citations for all data sources Do not call reverse geocode tool , category search tool , place details tool , or isochrone tool separately — they are already composed inside this tool. Query parameter The query parameter accepts category or subcategory terms — not attribute preferences: Supported: "restaurant" , "coffee" , "park" , "Italian restaurant" , "EV charging station" Not supported: "family friendly" , "fast charging" , "outdoor seating" — these are not filterable attributes in Mapbox data To help users find places matching a preference (e.g. "family friendly"), search by category ( "restaurant" ) and use the returned rating and price data to inform the recommendation. Fallback: manual composition If ground location tool is not available, build the grounded response by composing these tools in order: Step 1 — Establish place context Returns: neighborhood, city, region, country. This is the anchor for the response. Step 2 — Retrieve nearby POIs For specific names or brands: For generic categories: Step 3 — Enrich POIs with ratings and price (optional but high value) For each POI with a mapbox id , call in parallel: Returns: rating, price level, popularity, and opening hours per place. Step 4 — Add travel time context (optional but high value) Returns a polygon showing what's reachable within each time threshold. Step 5 — Visual grounding (optional) Returns a map image that can be included in the response for visual context. Grounded Response Structure Always structure grounded responses with explicit citations: Example grounded response: SoMa, San Francisco, CA (live Mapbox data) Restaurants within walking distance: Bix Restaurant $$ ★8.4 — 56 Gold St (180m) The Bird $ ★7.9 — 115 New Montgomery St (320m) Oren's Hummus $$ ★8.1 — 131 Townsend St (510m) Reachable by walking: 5 min, 10 min, 15 min Sources: Mapbox Geocoding API, Mapbox Search API, Mapbox Place Details API, Mapbox Isochrone API, Mapbox Static Images API Routing Grounding For questions about travel between two locations, use directions tool . For questions about reachable area, use isochrone tool . For comparing travel times across multiple locations, use matrix tool . Point to point travel time and distance "How long does it take to drive from Pike Place Market to Capitol Hill?" "What's the fastest route from the hotel to the airport?" Returns: duration (with live traffic), distance, turn by turn steps, and an encoded polyline for map rendering. Supports up to 25 waypoints for multi stop routes. Area reachability ("within X minutes") "What's reachable within a 10 minute walk?" "Show me what I can reach in 15 minutes by car from here" Returns a polygon showing the area reachable within each time threshold. Combine with category search tool or ground location tool to answer "what restaurants are within a 10 minute walk?" — use the isochrone to define the boundary, then search within it. Multi location travel time matrix "Which of these three offices is closest to my location?" "What are travel times from this warehouse to each of our delivery zones?" "Compare commute times to multiple locations" Use matrix tool — do NOT call directions tool separately for each pair . Matrix batches all pairs in a single API call. Returns a matrix of durations and distances between every source/destination pair. Rank results by duration to find the nearest location. One matrix tool call replaces N separate directions tool calls. Proximity search with routing context For "find [category] within X minutes of [location]": 1. Geocode the origin if needed: search and geocode tool(address) 2. Get the reachable area: isochrone tool(coordinates, profile, contours minutes) 3. Search for POIs: ground location tool(longitude, latitude, query: "category") — the isochrone contours tell the user what's within each time band Or more directly: ground location tool returns both nearby POIs and isochrone reachability in one call, which covers most proximity + routing use cases without additional composition. Example routing response Pike Place Market → Capitol Hill, Seattle By car (with traffic): 12 min, 3.2 km via Pine St By walking: 28 min, 2.1 km By cycling: 14 min, 2.3 km Source: Mapbox Directions API (live traffic) What Mapbox Grounding Offers vs. Training Data Training Data Mapbox Grounding POI accuracy Stale, hallucinated Live, verified Ratings/price Often wrong Live via Place Details Business hours Often wrong Live via Place Details Travel times Estimated Live traffic via Directions Reachable area Not available Isochrone polygons Multi stop routing Not available Up to 25 waypoints New places Missing Indexed Map image None Inline static map Citations None Tool + API source Important Limitations Attribute filtering (family friendly, outdoor seating, fast charging) is not supported by the category search API. Use category terms and let rating/price data inform preference based recommendations. POI coverage varies by region. If search returns few results, say so rather than padding with guesses. Coordinates required for proximity search — if the user provides an address, geocode it first with search and geocode tool before running category search. Anti Patterns to Avoid Answering "what's near X?" from training data without calling search tools Estimating travel times without calling directions tool or isochrone tool Hallucinating business names, hours, or ratings Calling reverse geocode tool + category search tool + place details tool separately when ground location tool is available Using attribute terms like "family friendly" as the query parameter — use the category instead Returning raw tool output without synthesizing into a readable response Omitting citations — always indicate the response is grounded in live Mapbox data

mapbox-location-grounding