MTConnect is the open standard for retrieving data from manufacturing equipment — an information model plus a read-only HTTP interface returning XML, so machine tools, CNCs and shop-floor equipment report state in a common vocabulary. It is deliberately read-only: it observes, it does not command.
MTConnect
MTConnect is the rare industrial standard that is actually an HTTP API. An agent asks a device for probe, current or sample and receives a structured document describing what the machine is and what it is doing — a discovery document and a telemetry stream, over the protocol the web already speaks.
- An information model - Devices, components and data items in a defined vocabulary, so a spindle is a spindle everywhere.
- HTTP and XML - Read-only requests over ordinary HTTP, which is unusual in this market and consequential.
- probe / current / sample - Discovery, snapshot and stream, in three verbs.
- Read-only by design - A deliberate safety boundary — observation without control.
- Pairs with OPC UA - The two are frequently deployed together, with a published companion mapping.
MTConnect deserves more attention than it gets in discussions of agent-readable infrastructure. It is a machine-readable telemetry interface, over HTTP, with a discovery document — precisely the artifact The State of Robotics & Autonomous Systems APIs finds missing, and it has existed since 2008. That the industrial segment still scores 13.6 on public contracts says the standard is deployed inside plants rather than exposed beyond them, which is a deployment choice rather than a technical gap.
Referenced in API Evangelist papers
This standard shows up in my published research. These reports read the machine-readable evidence provider by provider — and put this standard in the context of a real sector.
The State of Robotics & Autonomous Systems APIs
A machine-readable telemetry interface over HTTP with a discovery document, in place since 2008 — deployed inside plants rather than exposed beyond them.
