Maps

Ask your AI client to find places, turn an address into coordinates, or work out how long a drive will take. Orchard answers using Apple Maps data. Maps is a Pro integration.

What you can do

“Find coffee shops within walking distance of the Ferry Building in San Francisco.”
“What restaurants are near my current location?”
“Convert ‘1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA’ into coordinates.”
“How far is it, and how long would it take to drive from Boston to New York?”
“What’s the straight-line distance between these two coordinates?”
“Where am I right now?”

Available tools

Tool	Description
`location_search`	Search places. `type` selects the mode: `search` (general query), `nearby` (places around a coordinate, filtered by category), or `autocomplete` (address suggestions).
`location_geocode`	Convert between addresses and coordinates. `direction` selects `address_to_coords` or `coords_to_address`.
`location_route`	Calculate a route between two locations (distance, travel time, transport-specific notes). Can also compute straight-line distance between two coordinate pairs.
`location_current`	Get the device’s current coordinates and, optionally, the reverse-geocoded address.

location_search with type=nearby requires explicit latitude/longitude; it does not read the device location itself. If you don’t already have coordinates, ask for the current location first (location_current) and feed the result into the nearby search.

Searches accept a radius in meters and a result limit. General search defaults to a 10,000-meter radius; nearby search defaults to 5,000 meters. The maximum result count is 50 for search, 30 for nearby, and 10 for autocomplete.

Required permissions

Maps needs Location (When In Use) only for location_current, and macOS prompts for this the first time that tool runs. Search, geocoding, and routing by address or explicit coordinates don’t require any permission.

CLI usage

The command is `orchard location`, not `orchard maps`

Maps is the app name shown in the Orchard panel and in this documentation, but the CLI subcommand is orchard location. There is no orchard maps command.

Negative coordinates need `--flag=value`

Longitudes west of the prime meridian (and any other negative number) must be attached to the flag with an equals sign, like --lng1=-122.4194. If you write --lng1 -122.4194 with a space instead, the CLI reads -122.4194 as a new flag and fails with a usage error — quoting the value doesn’t help. This applies to every coordinate flag on this page, including --lon in location search and --lat1/--lng1/--lat2/--lng2 in location route.

orchard location search --query "coffee" --type nearby --lat 37.7955 --lon=-122.3937 --radius 1500 --limit 10

orchard location geocode --direction address_to_coords --address "1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA"

For an ambiguous address, bias forward geocoding toward a country or region with its two-letter code:

orchard location geocode --direction address_to_coords --address "Cambridge" --region US

orchard location route --origin "Boston, MA" --destination "New York, NY" --transport driving
orchard location current --json

--transport accepts convenient aliases that Orchard normalizes: auto, car, drive, and driving all map to automobile; cycle, bike, and biking map to cycling; walk/walking and transit pass through as-is.

If you already have two coordinate pairs and don’t need a routed path, skip --origin/--destination entirely and ask for the straight-line distance instead:

orchard location route --straight-line --lat1=37.7749 --lng1=-122.4194 --lat2=40.7128 --lng2=-74.0060 --unit miles

--unit accepts meters, kilometers, or miles, and defaults to kilometers if omitted.

Tips & limitations

transit routing only returns an ETA (expected travel time and distance), not turn-by-turn directions. The response includes an apple_maps_url you can open for the full route with bus/subway lines and transfers.
location_search result limits are capped at 50 for search, 30 for nearby, and 10 for autocomplete, regardless of the limit you request.
Geocoding quality depends on Apple’s geocoder: ambiguous or incomplete addresses may return multiple candidates or none.