GovInfo MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides LLM-friendly access to the official GovInfo API v4. This server enables searching and retrieving U.S. government documents, including bills, laws, regulations, and other official publications, for precise legal research and citation verification.

🎯 Purpose

The GovInfo MCP Server provides comprehensive access to federal regulations, statutes, and government documents through the GovInfo API. It is designed for LLMs and legal research tools to programmatically access up-to-date U.S. government information.

Related MCP server: eRegulations MCP Server

📦 Key Features

• Access to bills, statutes, regulations (CFR), and more

• Real-time updates from the official GovInfo API

• Retrieve full document text and metadata in HTML, XML, PDF, or plain text

• Search by keyword, collection, date, and more

• Explore related documents and cross-references

🛠️ Available MCP Tools

See app/README.md for full tool parameter documentation.

🚀 Setup

Prerequisites

• Python 3.14+

• uv for dependency management (Poetry is NOT used)

• Internet connection for GovInfo API access

• GovInfo API key (set GOVINFO_API_KEY in your environment)

• Ubuntu/Linux recommended (all commands below are for bash)

Installation

1. Clone the repository and navigate to the GovInfo project directory:

   git clone <repository-url>
   cd GovInfo

2. Install dependencies (creates a project-local .venv from the committed uv.lock):

   uv sync

3. Set your GovInfo API key:

   export GOVINFO_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

4. (Optional) Copy .env.example to .env and edit as needed.

Running the Server

By default the server speaks STDIO, which is what most local MCP clients expect:

uv run python -m app.server

Or use the VS Code task "Run MCP Server".

Streamable HTTP (standalone Linux service)

To run the server as a networked ASGI service, either start the exported app with Uvicorn:

uv run uvicorn app.server:app --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8775

or let the entry point select the transport:

MCP_TRANSPORT=http MCP_HOST=0.0.0.0 MCP_PORT=8775 uv run python -m app.server

The MCP endpoint is then http://<host>:8775/mcp and the operational health probe is http://<host>:8775/health. For horizontally scaled deployments set FASTMCP_STATELESS_HTTP=true (or MCP_STATELESS_HTTP=true); to enable Host/Origin request protection set MCP_ALLOWED_HOSTS/MCP_ALLOWED_ORIGINS, and to allow specific browser origins set MCP_CORS_ALLOW_ORIGINS.

Docker

docker compose up --build

The container serves Streamable HTTP on port 8775 and exposes /health for its HEALTHCHECK.

Running Tests

See tests/README.md for details. Typical usage:

uv run pytest

API Usage

See app/README.md for detailed tool documentation and usage examples.

🔗 Links

• GovInfo API Documentation

• FastMCP Documentation

• FastMCP Repository

• Project Source

• Source Documentation

• Test Suite

📝 Notes

• All code examples are tested and working.

• File paths use relative references from the project root.

• All commands use uv run where needed.

• For Ubuntu/Linux. For Windows, adapt commands as needed.

💖 Support

This project is maintained by travisprall. It is free to use, and support is always optional — but if it saves you time, a coffee is very much appreciated:

• ☕ Buy me a coffee

• 💜 Sponsor on GitHub

📄 License

Copyright © travisprall.

Released under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0 (SPDX: PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0). Noncommercial use is permitted; commercial use requires a separate license.

📚 Citation

If you use this software in research, please cite it using the metadata in CITATION.cff.