U.S. Government Open Data

What U.S. Government Open Data does

The U.S. Government Open Data MCP server exposes data from more than 40 government and international APIs through over 300 MCP tools. Its coverage includes economic indicators, federal spending, procurement, congressional and regulatory records, health and clinical research, financial activity, energy, environmental measurements, disasters, education, transportation, public safety, housing, patents, and workplace safety.

The U.S. Government Open Data MCP server is suited to questions that require current or historical information from official sources. Examples include comparing GDP and unemployment, examining legislation and voting records, finding FDA adverse-event data, reviewing federal awards, or combining health, lobbying, and campaign-finance records. Results include source metadata identifying the upstream API requests used.

How it works

The package runs as an MCP server over stdio for desktop integrations or over streamable HTTP for web and remote use. HTTP deployments can use bearer-token authentication when accessed outside loopback. Node.js 22 or newer is required for the server.

Tool exposure can be narrowed by loading selected modules, such as FRED, Treasury, or Congress, or by choosing broader domains such as economy or health. Discovery mode exposes four search-oriented tools instead of the full tool set, allowing the model to locate the operation it needs without loading hundreds of tools into the conversation. Code mode provides WASM-sandboxed JavaScript execution for handling large responses with less context usage.

Responses are cached on disk so cached data can persist across restarts. Requests use token-bucket rate limiting and exponential backoff for HTTP 429 and 503 responses. The project also includes a TypeScript SDK, so API clients can be used directly without starting an MCP server.

Setup and configuration

Start the MCP server with:

npx us-gov-open-data-mcp

Some APIs work without credentials, while others require free API keys. The README's example configuration provides FRED_API_KEY and DATA_GOV_API_KEY; the required keys depend on which data sources are used. Configure the command in VS Code's .vscode/mcp.json or Claude Desktop's claude_desktop_config.json.

For direct TypeScript use, install the package with npm install us-gov-open-data-mcp and import clients from SDK modules such as sdk/fred or sdk/congress. SDK functions include caching, retry behavior, and rate limiting.

Tools and capabilities

• Query economic, fiscal, health, legislative, environmental, financial, demographic, and research APIs.
• Cross-reference information from multiple agencies in one investigation.
• Restrict loaded tools by module or domain.
• Search for tools through discovery mode.
• Inspect upstream request sources in result metadata.
• Use typed TypeScript API clients without MCP.

Limitations and notes

The U.S. Government Open Data MCP server covers many APIs with different schemas, documentation quality, endpoint behavior, and parameter support. Some endpoints may return unexpected results or have incomplete coverage. Validate important findings against the cited upstream sources.

The project states that it passes through data from official U.S. government and international APIs rather than generating, modifying, or editorializing it. API credentials are not uniformly required: more than 20 APIs reportedly need no key, while the remaining services use free keys. The project is community-driven, so implementation issues and schema mismatches may require checking the repository or opening an issue.