How to Connect openrouteservice to Microsoft Copilot via MCP

💡 No install? Use cloud.anythingmcp.com directly. Sign in, click Connectors → openrouteservice, paste your credentials, mint an MCP API key and you're done. No Docker, no git clone, no local server.

openrouteservice + Microsoft Copilot

openrouteservice (HeiGIT) routing on OpenStreetMap: geocoding and reverse geocoding, directions with turn-by-turn steps for car, truck, bike, foot and wheelchair, travel time matrices, isochrones (reachable areas), multi-vehicle route optimisation and points of interest. Free API key.

Prerequisites

See the full setup instructions baked into the connector (visible in the in-app store when you select the connector). The required environment variables for this connector are:

OPENROUTESERVICE_API_KEY

Step 1 — Get credentials

Setting up takes about 2 minutes. You need a free HeiGIT account and an API key. The free plan covers testing and small production use.

1. Sign up for free at account.heigit.org and create an API key in the dashboard, under tokens.
2. Paste only the key into OPENROUTESERVICE_API_KEY, without the word Bearer, spaces or quotes. The connector sends it in the Authorization header.
3. Install the connector and run openrouteservice_geocode with a place name such as Berlin: it returns the place with its coordinates, which shows the key works.

Current address: the connector talks to https://api.heigit.org, the current home of openrouteservice. HeiGIT is shutting down the old api.openrouteservice.org in November 2026; keys created there work here too, so you can keep an existing key.

What it does: everything runs on OpenStreetMap data. It turns addresses into coordinates and back (geocoding, autocomplete as you type, reverse geocoding); plans routes with distance, duration and turn-by-turn steps for car, truck (driving-hgv), bicycle, foot and wheelchair, optionally avoiding highways, tolls or ferries; builds travel time matrices between many points; draws isochrones, the area you can reach within a given time or distance; solves tours for several vehicles (VROOM) with time windows, capacities and skills; and finds points of interest such as shops, fuel, pharmacies or charging stations around a point.

Longitude first: every routing tool takes coordinates as [longitude, latitude], for example [7.8421, 47.9990] for Freiburg. Swapping the two is the usual cause of a point not found or a route that ends in the sea, so the AI geocodes addresses first and passes the coordinates on unchanged.

Units: durations come in seconds and the AI converts them to hours and minutes for you. Distances are in kilometres by default. Isochrones take their range in seconds, or in metres for a distance range.

Read-only: the connector only computes. Several tools send their request as a POST, but none of them changes anything in your HeiGIT account, so there is nothing to confirm and no tool is switched off at install.

Limits: the free plan allows about 2,000 route requests a day and 40 a minute, with smaller daily quotas for matrices, isochrones, optimisation and points of interest. Every answer carries x-ratelimit-remaining, and the AI prefers one matrix over many single routes.

Common errors: 401 means no key arrived: check OPENROUTESERVICE_API_KEY. 403 means the key was refused or its daily quota is used up; check both at account.heigit.org. 429 means the per-minute limit was reached: wait a minute. Error 2004 means the request goes over a limit (too many points or too long a route); error 2010 means a point is not near a road, often because longitude and latitude were swapped.

The connector only computes on OpenStreetMap data: it draws no map images, offers no public transport routes and changes nothing in your HeiGIT account.

Step 2 — Install the adapter

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/HelpCode-ai/anythingmcp/main/docker-compose.quickstart.yml -o docker-compose.yml
printf 'JWT_SECRET=%s\nENCRYPTION_KEY=%s\n' "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" > .env
docker compose up -d

Step 3 — Add the connector in Microsoft Copilot

Your server URL: in AnythingMCP, open MCP Servers → the server this connector is on, and copy its URL (https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/mcp/…). Use it wherever this guide shows YOUR_SERVER_ID.

Microsoft Copilot uses MCP servers through agents built in Copilot Studio: you add AnythingMCP to an agent as a tool, then publish the agent to Microsoft 365 Copilot and Teams. Copilot Studio connects from Microsoft's cloud over Streamable HTTP, which AnythingMCP supports.

1. In Copilot Studio, open your agent (or create one), go to Tools and choose Add a tool → New tool → Model Context Protocol.
2. Enter a Server name (for example AnythingMCP), a Server description that says what the connector does, and the Server URL https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/mcp/YOUR_SERVER_ID. Copilot Studio uses the description to decide when to call the server.
3. Under authentication, choose API key, set Type to Header and the header name to X-API-Key, then select Create.
4. In Add tool, choose Create a new connection, paste an MCP API key from AnythingMCP (MCP Servers → your server → API keys) and select Add to agent.
5. Try it in the agent's Test pane: ask for something that needs the openrouteservice tools.
6. Select Publish, then Channels → Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams, keep Make agent available in Microsoft Copilot selected and choose Add channel. See agent in Teams installs it for you; in Microsoft 365 Copilot, type @ and pick the agent.

Prefer per-user sign-in? Choose OAuth 2.0 → Dynamic discovery instead of an API key: each user then signs in to AnythingMCP the first time the agent calls it.

Self-hosting? Use your instance's public HTTPS address instead of https://cloud.anythingmcp.com. Copilot Studio connects from Microsoft's cloud, so localhost does not work.

Available tools

Example prompts

• "How long is the drive from Heathrow Airport to the British Museum, and what are the turn-by-turn directions?"
• "Which of our technicians in Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield is closest by car to each of these 12 customer addresses?"
• "Show me the area anyone can reach within 15 minutes by car from our shop at 221 Deansgate, Manchester."
• "Plan tomorrow's deliveries: 25 stops, 2 vans working 8 am to 5 pm, and each customer's delivery window. Which van takes which stops, and in what order?"
• "Find pharmacies and EV charging stations within 500 metres of Trafalgar Square."

FAQ

Which Copilot is this for? Microsoft 365 Copilot at work, through agents built in Copilot Studio. The Microsoft Copilot app for personal accounts has no option to add your own MCP server.

What do I need? A work account with access to Copilot Studio (a license or a trial) to build the agent. People who use it in Microsoft 365 Copilot or Teams need access to the agent: share it with them, or ask an admin to publish it to the organization. If your organization applies data policies to Power Platform connectors, they cover MCP servers too.

The agent doesn't call the tools. Check that the header name is exactly X-API-Key and that the key belongs to the same MCP server as the URL, and make the server description specific: Copilot Studio uses it to decide when to call the server. Publish the agent again after each change; in an open chat, type "start over" to get the new version.

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