Build a tarot reader in Node.js with an open 78-card dataset (no scraping)

I wanted tarot card meanings as clean, structured data for a side project, and quickly hit the usual wall: the good interpretations live in long blog posts, and nobody wants to scrape and parse that. So I ended up packaging all 78 cards as an open, MIT-licensed dataset with npm and Python packages (and an MCP server, more on that at the end).

This post is a quick, practical tour: install it, pull a card, build a 3-card spread, and see where else the data lives. No scraping, no API key.

Install

npm install tarot-card-meanings

It ships with TypeScript types, has zero dependencies, and includes upright, reversed, love, career, and yes/no fields for every Major and Minor Arcana card.

Quick start

const tarot = require('tarot-card-meanings');



// Pull a random card

const card = tarot.getRandomCard();

console.log(card.name);     // e.g. "The Star"

console.log(card.upright);  // upright meaning

console.log(card.reversed); // reversed meaning



// Look up a specific card

const fool = tarot.getCard('The Fool');

console.log(fool.love);     // love-context interpretation

console.log(fool.career);   // career-context interpretation



// A built-in yes/no reading

const reading = tarot.getYesOrNo();

console.log(`${reading.card}: ${reading.answer}`);

Every card object has the same shape, so you can render it however you like.

Build a 3-card spread

The classic past / present / future spread is just three unique cards. Here is a tiny helper that draws without repeats:

const tarot = require('tarot-card-meanings');



function drawSpread(positions) {

  const deck = [...tarot.getAllCards()];

  return positions.map((label) => {

    const i = Math.floor(Math.random() * deck.length);

    const card = deck.splice(i, 1)[0]; // remove so it can't repeat

    return { position: label, ...card };

  });

}



const spread = drawSpread(['Past', 'Present', 'Future']);

for (const c of spread) {

  console.log(`\n${c.position}: ${c.name}`);

  console.log(c.upright);

}

That is the whole core of a reading app. Swap the position labels for ['Situation', 'Obstacle', 'Advice'] and you have a decision spread instead.

Same data in Python

If your stack is Python, the identical dataset is on PyPI:

pip install tarot-card-meanings

For the ML / data crowd

The raw dataset is also published on Hugging Face and archived with a DOI, so it is citable in a paper or notebook:

• Hugging Face dataset:
  

It is handy as a small, clean, labeled text corpus for embedding/semantic-search demos.

Bonus: let an AI assistant read tarot (MCP)

Because Model Context Protocol is having a moment, I also wrapped the dataset in an MCP server so an AI assistant can query card meanings as a tool:

• MCP server:
  
  
  

  All of the above is open and MIT licensed by , and there is a full index of the open data and tools at deckaura.com/pages/ai-data-sources. PRs and label corrections welcome.

  
  
  

  Happy building, and if you make something with it I would love to see it in the comments.

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