@pipeworx/sec-ftd

SEC fails-to-deliver (CNS) data. Keyless.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1576+ live data sources.

Tools

• ftd_security(symbol, periods?) — fails history for one ticker across recent half-month files.
• ftd_largest(period?, limit?) — the biggest fails in one reporting period.
• ftd_periods() — which periods SEC has published (currently 408, back to 2009).

The semantics are the point of this pack

A fail-to-deliver is a settlement failure — shares not delivered by the settlement date. The SEC says, where it publishes this file, that fails are not evidence of naked short selling. Ordinary causes include processing delays, order-entry mistakes, illiquidity in thinly traded securities, and long sales where the seller's shares did not arrive in time.

There is a loud audience that wants the opposite inference. So the framing is not a footnote: it is in every tool description and rides on every response as what_this_is and not_evidence_of. An agent that reads only the payload still cannot honestly draw the naked-shorting conclusion.

Two more reading traps, both surfaced in the responses themselves:

• The published number is cumulative, not daily-new. It is total shares failing on that settlement date across all participants. Summing days over-counts a fail that persists, which is why ftd_security returns peak_shares_failed alongside the total and says so in reading_note, and why ftd_largest ranks by each security's worst single day rather than a sum.
• Absence is not a clean bill of health. SEC lists a security on a date only when its fails exceed the reporting threshold, so "no rows" means no reportable fails — not that nothing failed and not that the ticker is unknown. The found: false path says exactly that.

Data source and cadence

https://www.sec.gov/data-research/sec-markets-data/fails-deliver-data — one pipe-delimited file per half month (a = 1st–15th, b = 16th–month end), zipped. Measured 2026-08-25: the current file (cnsfails202607b.zip) is 1.65 MB zipped, 4.6 MB raw, 73,340 rows, covering 13,500 securities. SEC posts a period a few weeks after it closes.

Each call reads the periods the question needs straight from SEC, so currency is simply whatever SEC has published — ftd_periods reports it. A request spanning many periods costs one fetch per half month, which is why periods is capped at 6.

Two upstream traps worth knowing

• The path is not constructible. Recent files live under /files/data/fails-deliver-data/, older ones under /files/data/other/fails-deliver-data/ — verified 2026-08-25, where cnsfails202605b.zip 404s on the first prefix and 200s on the second. The pack reads SEC's index page rather than guessing.
• These ZIPs set the data-descriptor flag (0x08), so the local file header carries zeroes for both sizes. A reader that trusts the local header extracts nothing. Sizes are taken from the central directory, which always has the real values.

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sec-ftd": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/sec-ftd/mcp"
    }
  }
}

What this endpoint actually serves

tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/sec-ftd/mcp returns the tools in the table above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx, discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and is the authoritative answer for a given day.

This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth, connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.

Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipeworx": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1576+ data sources. The only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx reaches all of them from either one.

Standalone (no gateway account)

This package also runs as a local stdio MCP server — no Pipeworx account, no gateway round-trip:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sec-ftd": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-sec-ftd"]
    }
  }
}

Or run it directly to confirm it starts:

npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-sec-ftd

It speaks MCP over stdin/stdout and answers initialize/tools/list/tools/call for only this pack's tools — none of the shared meta-tools the gateway connection above adds. Same source, same tools, no ask_pipeworx routing.

Using with ask_pipeworx

Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:

ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about Sec Ftd data" })

The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.

More

• Docs and guides
• pipeworx.io

License

MIT