GOV.UK Search MCP Server

MCP server for searching GOV.UK. Exposes two tools:

• search_gov_uk — keyword search ranked by relevance

• latest_gov_uk — most recent publications, newest first

Uses the GOV.UK Search API.
The server runs over streamable-http.

Installation

pip install govuk-search-mcp

Or with uv:

uv add govuk-search-mcp

No install needed with uvx — see usage below.

Usage

The server runs over streamable-http. Start it first:

uvx govuk-search-mcp
# or, if installed via pip/uv:
govuk-search-mcp

By default it listens on http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp. Override with env vars:

Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gov-uk": {
      "url": "http://localhost:8000/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http gov-uk-search http://localhost:8000/mcp

Tools

search_gov_uk

Search GOV.UK by keyword.

latest_gov_uk

Get most recently updated GOV.UK publications.

Development

uv sync
just test        # unit tests
just test_int    # integration tests (hits live GOV.UK API)
just lint        # ruff + mypy