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Charlotteonthecheap MCP

Finds Charlotte-area events, deals, and local guides, with filters for dates, cost, categories, and locations.

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Install Charlotteonthecheap MCP

Pick your client, then add it in one click or paste the config.

STDIONode.js
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
claude_desktop_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "charlotteonthecheap-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "onthecheap-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Settings → Developer → Edit Config, merge this into mcpServers, then fully quit and reopen Claude Desktop.

Automated check passed— started and listed 8 tools correctly (Today).

Overview

charlotteonthecheap-mcp MCP server reads public Charlotte On The Cheap data over HTTPS and exposes it through read-only MCP tools. It lists daily events, summarizes event activity by month, searches articles, retrieves full posts, and provides category, location, site, and availability checks. Choose the city with a required per-call site argument; the Charlotte key is "charlotte". Reach for it when an agent needs current local events, free activities, deals, or guides without credentials.

Use cases

  • Find free Charlotte events for a specific day
  • Compare event counts across cities and dates
  • Search local guides by neighborhood and category
  • Retrieve a deal or event article in full
  • Check whether an On the Cheap site is reachable

Key features

  • Daily event listings with time, price, and venue
  • Free-only event filtering
  • Monthly event counts with previews
  • Searchable deals and local guides
  • Per-site category and location filters
  • Site reachability checks

Tools8

What Charlotteonthecheap MCP lets your agent do. Expand a tool for its parameters.

Verified live~2.3k tokens of context

Security & health

What it can reach and how reliably it runs — from our own checks, not the maintainer’s claims.

ActiveLast checked 1d ago

Recent health check succeeded.

11/11 checks healthy over the last 51d

What it can do

From the 8 tools this server returned when we ran it; 8 declare their own safety hints.

Handles credentials · 1Makes network requests · 7Read-only tools · 8
Network at startup3 connections
Files written at startupNone
Install scriptsNone
npm provenanceSigned build
Package age105 days
Maintainers1

Observed 2026-11-02 in an isolated sandbox. A description of reach, not a security audit.

Supply-chain signal

No high-severity advisories surfaced by our automated scan.

Critical 0High 0Medium 0Low 0

Scanned 10d ago via OSV.dev · onthecheap-mcp (npm)

Adoption & maintenance

Factual signals from GitHub, npm, and our automated checks — not a rating.

npm downloads1.6kPackage downloads in the last 30 days.
Last commit8d agoMost recent push to the default branch.
Availability100%Our rolling endpoint + install checks that succeeded.
Install checkPassedOur sandbox started it and listed its tools.
Tools exposed8Callable tools this server registers over MCP.

How Charlotteonthecheap MCP works

What charlotteonthecheap-mcp does

charlotteonthecheap-mcp MCP server gives an MCP client read-only access to the On the Cheap network, including Charlotte On The Cheap and other city sites. For Charlotte requests, use the charlotte site key. The network covers local event calendars and an article archive containing deals and guides; the national site supports article searches but has no local events calendar.

The server is useful for questions such as finding free activities on a particular day, comparing event availability across dates or cities, locating posts about a neighborhood, or opening a guide as readable text. It does not create, edit, or book anything.

How it works

Each tool request selects a site explicitly. This prevents a request intended for another city from silently returning Charlotte results. Common aliases are accepted for some sites, and otc_list_sites returns the available keys and site names. Unknown site keys are rejected with the valid choices.

The server fetches public site data server-side over plain HTTPS, so no account or API credential is required. Category and location identifiers belong to individual site installations; resolve them for the same site that will be searched rather than reusing an ID from another city.

Expired offers are omitted from searches by default. A search can include them with include_expired: true. Event requests use dates supplied to the event tools, and the month overview provides actual daily totals alongside limited previews.

Setup and configuration

Install and run the package with:

Terminal
npx onthecheap-mcp

The server has no environment variables or configuration file. Select the city through the required site argument on tool calls. The exception is otc_list_sites, which needs no arguments. The project also documents installation as a Claude Code plugin using its marketplace and plugin-install commands.

Tools and capabilities

The charlotteonthecheap-mcp MCP server exposes these tools:

  • otc_list_events returns events for a day, including time, price, and venue. It defaults to today and can restrict results to no-cost listings with free_only.
  • otc_events_month_overview reports daily event counts and a short listing preview for a month. Use otc_list_events for the complete schedule on a selected date.
  • otc_search_posts searches articles by text, category, location, and date range, returning compact summaries by default.
  • otc_get_post retrieves one article by ID, slug, or URL as readable text or raw HTML.
  • otc_list_categories and otc_list_locations expose per-site filters and their post counts.
  • otc_list_sites lists network cities and their site keys.
  • otc_healthcheck tests whether a site is reachable and reports failures as edge_blocked, http, timeout, or transport.

Limitations and notes

All tools are read-only. national is rejected by both event tools because that site has no local events calendar, although its posts remain searchable. Month results are previews rather than complete daily schedules, even though their total values represent the full count. The server relies on public site availability, so health checks can expose network, timeout, or edge-blocking failures.

The underlying documentation notes that event date routing uses the US M-D-YYYY format; callers should use that format for event calendar requests rather than assuming an ISO date will be interpreted correctly.

Read the full README View source on GitHub

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Frequently Asked Questions about Charlotteonthecheap MCP

charlotteonthecheap-mcp is an MCP server that connects AI clients to public On the Cheap city sites, including Charlotte On The Cheap. Its main tools list daily events, summarize monthly calendars, search posts, retrieve full articles, list categories and locations, enumerate sites, and check site availability without credentials.

Run `npx onthecheap-mcp` to start the server. It also provides a Claude Code plugin installation path through the project's marketplace commands. No credentials, browser extension, environment variables, or additional configuration are required.

Pass `site: "charlotte"` on tool calls that require a site. The city is selected per request rather than through a default or environment variable. `otc_list_sites` can show the available site keys.

Yes, `otc_list_events` supports the `free_only` filter for no-cost listings. Supply the target site and date; if no date is provided, the tool defaults to today.

The server can also be launched with `npx onthecheap-mcp` as a standard MCP process.

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