Command

Public API

Command API

The same catalog extraction as this page, without a browser session. GET or POST /api/command with a natural-language query. Catalog search still has to identify every place. No invented UN/LOCODEs. Overview only — not navigational advice.

Open to automated callers: robots.txt allows /api/command, and every reply carries Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * so browser-based agents can read it. No key or session. Rate limited to 10 requests per minute per IP.

Examples

Query is q or query on GET, query or command on POST. map, png, and screenshot also mean image; url means link.

curl -sS "https://ocean.nomap.app/api/command?q=Oakland+to+Qingdao&format=json"

curl -sS "https://ocean.nomap.app/api/command?q=Oakland+to+Qingdao&format=image" \
  -o map.png

curl -sS "https://ocean.nomap.app/api/command?q=Rome+to+Stockholm+via+Paris+and+Berlin&format=image&stats=all" \
  -o card.png

curl -sS "https://ocean.nomap.app/api/command?q=Oakland+to+Qingdao&format=link"

curl -sS "https://ocean.nomap.app/api/command?q=Oakland+to+Qingdao&format=geojson" \
  -o route.geojson

curl -sS "https://ocean.nomap.app/api/command?q=Oakland+to+Qingdao&format=kml" \
  -o route.kml

curl -sS "https://ocean.nomap.app/api/command" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query":"Oakland to Qingdao","format":"json"}'

All parameters

The image with its panel, plus the POST conversation fields. picks, followUp, and prior are how this page continues an unresolved name; they are valid on a resolved query and ignored when unused.

curl -sS "https://ocean.nomap.app/api/command" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{
  "query": "Oakland to Qingdao",
  "format": "image",
  "stats": "all",
  "picks": [
    {
      "id": "usoak",
      "query": "Oakland",
      "name": "Oakland",
      "country": "United States"
    }
  ],
  "followUp": "by sea",
  "prior": "Oakland to Qingdao"
}'

Open the Rome → Stockholm card · Oakland → Qingdao · map only

The route map

The image is a dark Natural Earth chart with every leg drawn in its mode's line: dotted for sea, amber for road, a cross-tie track for rail. stats=all, or any panel name from earlier versions, adds the panel: the route, its codes and the figures below. stats=none (the default) keeps the map alone. Every figure is NoMap's planning estimate from the calculated legs; a value NoMap does not have is left out.

Map files

format=geojson and format=kml return the calculated legs as a file that QGIS, Google Earth and other map tools open. Each leg is a line with its mode, places and NoMap's distance; each place is a point. A leg NoMap could not route is listed with the reason and has no line. A line that crosses the date line is cut there. For a tool that goes by the name in the address, the same files are at /api/command/nomap-route.geojson and /api/command/nomap-route.kml.

Download Oakland → Qingdao as GeoJSON · KML · Open it in RustGIS

RustGIS is one free tool that reads a file from its address, so a public Command API route opens there in one step. It is an option: the files are standard and NoMap does not depend on it.

Conversation fields

POST can continue an unresolved command the same way this page does. picks are up to six { id, query, name?, country? } suggestion choices. followUp (400 characters) and prior (1,500 characters) carry the next turn and the working command.

Responses

• 200 — JSON for json/link;image/png for image;application/geo+json andapplication/vnd.google-earth.kml+xml for the map files.
• 400 — missing or oversized query, or invalid JSON.
• 422 — place still unresolved. Same warning, suggestions, draft, and workingCommand as this page.
• 429 — 10 requests per minute per client.

Query maximum is 1,500 characters. Image generation can take up to a minute. Tiles © Esri World Imagery.

Coverage

What NoMap routes on

Routes come from the networks below. When a leg says “no rail route found in NoMap's rail data”, these networks do not connect its places. A railway or waterway may still exist there.

• Sea: the Marnet sea network, worldwide.
• Road: OpenStreetMap roads through OpenRouteService's truck profile.
• Rail: OpenStreetMap rail lines in 131 countries, 646,465 km of track, with gaps. Checked corridors: China–Duisburg Eurasian Rail Freight; China–Aktau–Alat–Georgian Black Sea; China–Pakistan Rail Development Corridor; China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan Railway; China–Tashkent Central Asia Freight; China–Kazakhstan–Turkmenistan–Iran Freight; Turkmenbashi–Alat–Turkey Rail-Ferry Corridor; Vladivostok / Vostochny–Duisburg Trans-Siberian Rail; Turkey–Greece–Bulgaria–Romania–Hungary Freight Spine; Egypt ENR Delta and Nile Valley Freight.
• Inland waterways: Danube, Elbe, Grand Canal, Mississippi, Nile, Pearl River, Rhine, Volga, Yangtze. River ports on 484 other waterways are in the catalog, but routes on them are not checked.

data/osm-rail-router.json (2026-09-05), OpenStreetMap-derived. Kilometres are routable track in NoMap's network, counted in the country where each stretch lies.

Use it from an AI assistant

NoMap Router

The same route calculation, reachable over the Model Context Protocol. Add the server to ChatGPT, Claude or any MCP client and ask for a route in plain language; the assistant calls the tool and shows the result.

No account, no API key and no sign-in. Nothing is stored between calls: the same request tomorrow is treated exactly like the first one.

Tools

All four only read. None of them writes, sends, posts or books anything.

When a place could be several

“Springfield” is a town in five states and two rail stations. Rather than pick one, plan_route returns the candidates with their state or country and position, and the assistant asks you which you mean. Each candidate carries an answer that stands for exactly that place, so your choice lands where you meant on the next call. A request that needs a port between an inland place and one across the sea asks the same way, with the nearest ports.

The map card

Ask to see the route and route_mapreturns NoMap's rendered card: the corridor as calculated, on satellite imagery, with the identified places, distance and transit panels, and an elevation profile. It is drawn from the same routing data the figures come from, so the picture and the numbers agree.

What it does not do

• No live vessel positions, schedules or tracking. It plans routes between places.
• No passenger travel, flights or fares.
• No customs, tariff or regulatory guidance.
• No bookings, quotes or payments. Nothing is sold through the connector.
• No invented UN/LOCODEs. A place the catalog cannot identify comes back as a question, with suggestions, rather than a guess.

Limits

Queries are capped at 1,500 characters and calls at 30 per minute per client. Rendering a card can take up to a minute. Distances, durations and cost bands are planning estimates from published network data and stated assumptions — an overview, not navigational advice, and not a freight quote.

What the tools receive, who else it reaches and how long anything is kept is set out in the privacy policy. Tiles © Esri World Imagery. Addresses are found in OpenStreetMap data, © OpenStreetMap contributors.