ProjectPermit / BuildRequirements

ProjectPermit is a building permit requirements API & MCP for contractors and AI agents. It checks proposed construction and renovation scope across 7 Canadian municipalities and returns deterministic permit signals, official-source evidence, workflow routing, and an automation-ready action bundle. BuildRequirements is the deterministic rules engine inside it.

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No account, API key, wallet, MCP client, or platform integration is required for the current structured-facts validation preview.

• Free HTTP preview: POST https://projectpermit-api-v2-production.up.railway.app/v1/preview-project-requirements
• Free capability discovery: GET https://projectpermit-api-v2-production.up.railway.app/v1/capabilities
• Free standard MCP preview: https://projectpermit-mcp-production.up.railway.app/mcp

See TRY_PROJECTPERMIT.md for a copy-paste curl example and the preview privacy boundary. The anonymous HTTP preview intentionally excludes civic-address/GIS resolution; use the standard MCP developer preview for a bounded address-aware validation workflow.

Current jurisdiction coverage

Current deterministic rule footprint:

• gatineau_qc
• ottawa_on
• toronto_on
• mississauga_on
• laval_qc
• longueuil_qc
• vancouver_bc

The engine covers 8 normalized project families, preserves uncertainty instead of guessing, attaches official-source evidence to rule results, and exposes the same jurisdiction router through HTTP, standard MCP, and x402-paid MCP.

First-party municipal/open-data address resolution is available for Gatineau, Ottawa, Toronto, Mississauga and Vancouver. Laval and Longueuil currently support rule preflight with resolve_address=false.

The engine deliberately does not call an LLM. A calling agent normalizes natural-language scope into structured facts; BuildRequirements applies deterministic municipal rules.

Agent workflow differentiation

Every successful preflight now includes an additive deterministic workflow object so a contractor, property or field-service agent can use the result inside a real operating workflow instead of merely displaying a permit answer.

Stable routing signals include:

• ADD_PERMIT_TASK
• CONTINUE_WITH_EVIDENCE
• COLLECT_MISSING_FACTS
• ROUTE_SPECIAL_REVIEW
• MUNICIPAL_CONFIRMATION
• MANUAL_SCOPE_REVIEW

The workflow package also includes a quote-handling signal, a deliberately narrow automation_safe flag, and up to three high-value follow-up questions when another deterministic call can resolve missing context. Workflow guidance never changes the underlying permit determination and never represents municipal authorization.

See docs/AGENT_WORKFLOW_GUIDANCE.md.

Live endpoints and commercial x402 pricing

• HTTP API: https://projectpermit-api-v2-production.up.railway.app
• Free HTTP developer-validation preview: POST https://projectpermit-api-v2-production.up.railway.app/v1/preview-project-requirements
• Standard MCP developer-validation preview: https://projectpermit-mcp-production.up.railway.app/mcp
• Paid MCP: https://projectpermit-x402-mcp-production.up.railway.app/mcp

The HTTP API exposes free machine-readable capability discovery at GET /v1/capabilities.

Commercial x402 resources are configured on Base mainnet (eip155:8453) with USDC payment. The current launch price intentionally minimizes first-use friction while paid adoption and repeat-call behavior are being validated:

• single paid HTTP preflight: $0.05 USDC / call
• single paid MCP preflight: $0.05 USDC / call
• paid HTTP batch, up to 50 normalized projects: $2.00 USDC / batch (full 50-item batch = $0.04/item, 20% below 50 single calls)

The production facilitator is https://facilitator.payai.network.

The paid MCP exposes a free projectpermit_info tool and the x402-paid check_project_requirements tool. The paid HTTP routes return an x402 402 Payment Required challenge when no valid payment is supplied.

The result is a preflight information package, not municipal authorization, legal advice, engineering certification, or building-code design approval.

Market thesis

The business target is not a homeowner-only Do I need a permit? wizard and not a managed permit-submission service. ProjectPermit is intended to become a cross-jurisdiction permit-requirements intelligence layer embedded in contractor, property-management, construction/design, permitting, and real-estate software/Agent workflows.

Market validation remains active in parallel with product development. Differentiated product work and commercial distribution no longer wait for outreach replies. Geography expansion remains evidence-led because every additional municipality adds ongoing rule/source maintenance cost; priority goes to requested geographies or workflows with credible repeated volume.

The first commercially meaningful internal checkpoint is roughly 10,000 monthly external preflight calls. A preferred proof shape is approximately 5 integrations × 2,000 calls/month, or one platform workflow capable of the same volume. This is a validation target, not a forecast.

Read:

• docs/MARKET_VALIDATION.md — market background, pricing thesis and original call-volume model
• docs/DISTRIBUTION_VALIDATION.md — 2026 platform evidence, competition and validation plan
• docs/CALL_VOLUME_THRESHOLDS.md — bottom-up monthly-call and revenue thresholds
• docs/PAIN_EVIDENCE.md — observed field/community pain evidence separated from assumptions
• docs/TARGET_ACCOUNT_RANKING.md — ranked design-partner targets by pain and distribution leverage
• docs/OUTREACH_BATCH_01.md — tailored first outreach batch
• docs/DESIGN_PARTNER_TRIAL.md — low-friction 20-case pilot protocol
• docs/EXTERNAL_USAGE_BASELINE.md — clean external-usage starting baseline
• docs/INTEGRATION_QUICKSTART.md — copy-paste developer integration examples

Architecture

All transports call the same shared address-aware preflight pipeline:

HTTP / standard MCP / x402 paid MCP -> preflight_service -> municipal address/GIS adapters -> jurisdiction router -> deterministic rules -> workflow guidance

Resolved non-null municipal property facts can enrich a request before rule evaluation. Unknown overlays remain unknown and never silently overwrite an explicit caller value.

Successful preflight calls also emit privacy-minimal structured usage telemetry for market validation. The telemetry excludes civic address, coordinates, property identifiers, payment credentials, IP/user-agent data and raw client tags. Internal CI/owner smoke traffic is explicitly tagged so it can be excluded from external call counts. Municipal HTTP request URL logging is suppressed so address/query details are not leaked indirectly through httpx INFO logs.

Quick start

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .
uvicorn projectpermit.api:app --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8000

For standard MCP support:

pip install -e '.[mcp]'
projectpermit-mcp

projectpermit-mcp uses MCP Python SDK v2 Streamable HTTP, JSON responses, and stateless HTTP. It listens on 127.0.0.1:8001 by default. Override with PROJECTPERMIT_MCP_HOST and PROJECTPERMIT_MCP_PORT.

Run tests:

PYTHONPATH=src python -m unittest discover -s tests -v

API

For no-wallet validation, use the free structured-facts route:

POST /v1/preview-project-requirements

For the x402-paid HTTP contract, use:

POST /v1/check-project-requirements

Both use the same normalized project shape; the anonymous free preview intentionally rejects address/GIS resolution. Example project facts:

{
  "jurisdiction": "toronto_on",
  "resolve_address": false,
  "project": {
    "family": "window_door",
    "action": "replace_same_size",
    "single_dwelling_house": true,
    "structural_change": false,
    "new_exit": false
  }
}

A successful preflight response also contains workflow, for example:

{
  "workflow": {
    "mode": "NO_PERMIT_SIGNAL",
    "recommended_route": "CONTINUE_WITH_EVIDENCE",
    "quote_handling": "NO_PERMIT_ALLOWANCE_SIGNAL",
    "automation_safe": true,
    "follow_up_questions": []
  }
}

For an address-aware jurisdiction, set resolve_address=true and supply address through the standard MCP preview or paid route; the anonymous HTTP preview deliberately does not accept address resolution.

Developer-validation workflow

The standard MCP endpoint remains free so a design partner can test workflow fit without a wallet or billing setup. A recommended pilot uses 20 anonymized real scopes, a stable non-PII context.client_tag, and measures whether the result actually changes the next workflow step.

Partner evidence is tracked in:

• data/partner_targets.csv — 20 candidate design-partner accounts
• data/partner_feedback.csv — structured conversation/pilot/call-volume outcomes
• data/design_partner_scope_template.csv — anonymized pilot-case template

Summarize validation evidence with:

python scripts/summarize_partner_feedback.py

Unknown interview values remain unknown rather than being silently converted to zero. Commercial decisions therefore depend on recorded external evidence, not optimistic inference, while engineering/distribution work continues in parallel.

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