🇩🇪 Deutsche Version

🏛️ parlament-mcp

Part of the Swiss Public Data MCP Portfolio – connecting AI models to Swiss public data sources.

Note: This server covers the federal level (Curia Vista). This repo additionally hosts a self-contained subproject under openparldata-mcp/ — the subnational counterpart for the 26 cantons and ~70 municipal parliaments (OpenParlData.ch). The two are independent servers.

An MCP server that connects AI models to the Swiss Federal Parliament via the Curia Vista OData API (ws.parlament.ch). Access motions, interpellations, votes, members, sessions, and the verbatim debate transcripts of the Amtliches Bulletin – with no API key required (Phase 1 – No-Auth-First).

🎯 Anchor Demo Queries

Metadata layer:

"Welche Vorstösse zu KI in der Schule sind hängig?" → parlament_search_business(keyword="KI", keyword2="Schule", status="Eingereicht")

Verbatim transcripts (Amtliches Bulletin):

"What did National Councillor Munz say in the 2024 spring session about the Volksschule? Give me the exact wording with a correct AB citation." → parlament_search_transcripts(speaker_name="Munz", session_id=5202, keyword="Volksschule") → then parlament_get_transcript(transcript_id=…) for the full wording.

Returns short, citable excerpts (AB 2024 N, 2024-03-13, Munz Martina) with a stable source URL; the verbatim text is fetched on demand, never in bulk.

→ More use cases by audience →

Perfect for the KI-Fachgruppe Stadtverwaltung Zürich: find pending motions on AI in education, or quote what was actually said in the chamber – instantly.

🔧 Tools

🏗️ Architecture

┌──────────────────────────────────┐
│     MCP Host (Claude Desktop /    │
│     Claude API / IDE)             │
└─────────────┬─────────────────────┘
              │ MCP Protocol (JSON-RPC 2.0)
              │ Transport: stdio (local) / SSE (cloud)
┌─────────────▼─────────────────────┐
│          parlament-mcp            │
│   FastMCP · Python · Pydantic v2  │
│                                   │
│  ┌── metadata layer (server.py) ──┐
│  │  search_business · get_business │
│  │  search_members · get_votes     │
│  │  get_sessions                   │
│  └─────────────────────────────────┘
│  ┌── transcript layer ────────────┐  ← separate module (transcripts.py)
│  │  search_transcripts (excerpts) │    · Language='DE' dedups editions
│  │  get_transcript (verbatim)     │    · Type=1 = real speeches only
│  └─────────────────────────────────┘    · retry + 45s read timeout
└─────────────┬─────────────────────┘
              │ HTTPS / OData v3
┌─────────────▼─────────────────────┐
│  ws.parlament.ch / odata.svc      │
│  Curia Vista – No Auth Required   │
│                                   │
│  Business · Vote · MemberCouncil  │   metadata path
│  Session ─< Meeting ─< Subject ─< Transcript   transcript path
└───────────────────────────────────┘

🚀 Installation

Claude Desktop (stdio)

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "parlament": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["parlament-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Local development

git clone https://github.com/malkreide/parlament-mcp
cd parlament-mcp
pip install -e .
python -m parlament_mcp.server

Cloud / Railway (SSE)

MCP_TRANSPORT=sse MCP_HOST=0.0.0.0 PORT=8080 python -m parlament_mcp.server
# SSE endpoint: http://your-host:8080/sse

Network binding

By default the server binds to 127.0.0.1 (localhost only). Set MCP_HOST=0.0.0.0 only inside a container/cloud context (Docker, Railway, Render, Kubernetes). Never bind to 0.0.0.0 on a local dev machine – it exposes the server to your local network (NeighborJack risk); the server logs a warning if you do so outside a detected container.

Transport is selected via MCP_TRANSPORT (stdio default, or sse / streamable-http); --http is kept as an alias for streamable-http.

Authentication (optional)

The HTTP transport is open by default (public read-only data). To require a bearer token, serve via the CORS/auth app factory and set MCP_BEARER_TOKENS:

MCP_BEARER_TOKENS="alice:tok_abc,bob:tok_def" MCP_ALLOWED_ORIGINS="https://claude.ai" \
  uvicorn parlament_mcp.server:create_http_app --factory --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8080

Each request then needs Authorization: Bearer <token>; identity comes from the validated token, not a session header (see docs/security.md).

Docker

docker compose up --build          # binds 127.0.0.1:8080 only
# or build the hardened image directly (non-root, read-only FS):
docker build -t parlament-mcp .

Kubernetes manifests (hardened securityContext, resource limits, egress NetworkPolicy, Mcp-Session-Id sticky routing) live in deploy/k8s/; an HAProxy stick-table example is in deploy/haproxy.cfg.

🔗 Synergies

Power query example:

"Zeige mir alle Zürcher Motionen zu KI in der Bildung
 und verlinke die relevanten Bundesgesetze aus fedlex-mcp."

📊 Data Source

• API: ws.parlament.ch/odata.svc
• Authentication: None (Phase 1 – No-Auth-First)
• Protocol: OData v3 / JSON
• Coverage: All parliamentary businesses since 1978; votes since ~2000. Structured verbatim transcripts (Amtliches Bulletin) from 1999-12-06 onward (earlier years 1891–1999 exist only as archive scans — see Known Limitations).
• Update cycle: Real-time (official government data)

Copyright — verbatim quotation is allowed

Official proceedings of Swiss authorities are excluded from copyright under Art. 5 para. 1 lit. a URG (Swiss Copyright Act). The verbatim wording of parliamentary debates in the Amtliches Bulletin may therefore be reproduced and quoted freely — which is exactly what the transcript tools return: the wording itself, never a summary standing in for it.

📜 Data sources & licenses

Every tool returns a typed structured response (FastMCP exposes the output schema) carrying source, license, provenance, match_type and count alongside typed results. Data is passed through unmodified.

🧭 Phase

This server is in Phase 1 — Read-only Wrapper (all tools readOnlyHint: true, no writes). The full phase model and transition criteria are in docs/roadmap.md.

🔖 MCP Protocol Version

This server speaks two protocol eras over the same endpoint. The client's first request on a connection decides which one applies; a later claim from the other era is refused.

Both revisions are pinned in tests/test_protocol_version.py and asserted against the installed SDK, so a Dependabot bump of mcp cannot move either one silently. This server builds no ASGI app to send an initialize through, so the gate asserts the SDK constants rather than a measured response — the weaker form, named rather than left unsaid.

Note that the SDK's LATEST_PROTOCOL_VERSION is an alias for the modern era, not for the handshake era — pinning against it alone would leave the era that current clients actually negotiate free to drift.