License Verify MCP

What lmaniraruta/license-verify-mcp MCP server does

The lmaniraruta/license-verify-mcp MCP server checks contractor licensing records for Washington and California. A successful lookup can include the license status, license type, business name, effective and expiration dates, surety bond information, and insurance information. The response also includes the jurisdiction, query details, source URL, retrieval timestamp, and raw source data.

Washington is the production-oriented option. Its provider reads official Washington Department of Labor & Industries open data through Socrata JSON endpoints. The available data includes dedicated bond and insurance datasets. California support is beta and uses the California Contractors State License Board’s HTML detail pages.

How it works

Call verify_license with jurisdiction set to WA or CA and provide at least one lookup value. License numbers are accepted for both jurisdictions. Business-name lookup is available for Washington and supports partial matching, which may produce a matches[] collection.

Results indicate whether a record was found. A found result uses one of these statuses: active, expired, suspended, revoked, or unknown. Bond and insurance fields describe whether matching coverage was found and include source details such as carrier, policy or bond number, amount, coverage, and dates when available.

The lmaniraruta/license-verify-mcp MCP server does not treat a failed source request as a crash. It returns structured errors such as SESSION_ERROR or NETWORK_ERROR. The separate list_supported_jurisdictions tool reports the supported states, their availability, and their data sources.

Setup and configuration

Build and run the lmaniraruta/license-verify-mcp MCP server locally with the repository’s Node.js scripts. The documented sequence is npm install, npm run build, and npm run start:mcp. The MCP process uses stdio. Claude Desktop can launch the compiled server with Node and the path to dist/index.js; that path must be replaced with the local repository path.

The repository also documents an Apify Actor workflow. Its input uses the same jurisdiction and lookup fields. A local Actor test writes an INPUT.json file, builds the project, and runs npx apify run; this is separate from starting the stdio MCP process.

Tools and capabilities

• verify_license: Looks up a contractor by license number or supported business name.
• list_supported_jurisdictions: Lists state support, status, and source information.
• Returns full status, bond, and insurance data when matching records are available.
• Supports Washington live data and California beta data.
• Provides structured not-found and source-failure responses.

Limitations and notes

Washington is identified as reliable for production use. California depends on direct CSLB HTML access, and automated requests may be rate-limited or return HTTP 503 responses. The documentation advises against relying on California for production workflows until a stable server-side run is confirmed.

The Actor pricing model charges $0.03 for a successful full result and $0.01 for a successful status-only result. A status-only response can occur when bond or insurance data does not match, or when statusOnly: true is used. Not-found responses, validation errors, and source failures are free. The provided MCP tool description does not document a statusOnly parameter for the stdio tool, so clients should not assume that option is available there.

The project is licensed under MIT. Adding another state requires implementing the repository’s provider interface and registering the provider in the provider index.