de-eli-mcp

Install (one command)

As a Claude plugin (Claude Code or the desktop app, needs uv); see plugin/README.md for what it sends and stores:

/plugin marketplace add matematicsolutions/de-eli-mcp
/plugin install de-eli-mcp@de-eli-mcp

As a standalone server:

Published on PyPI + MCP Registry (io.github.matematicsolutions/de-eli-mcp). Run without cloning:

uvx de-eli-mcp

Configure your MCP client (stdio):

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

Windows 11 with Smart App Control

Smart App Control blocks unsigned executables, which covers uvx.exe, pip.exe and the de-eli-mcp.exe launcher that pip writes at install time. The python.exe and py.exe from the python.org installer are signed by the Python Software Foundation, so running the module through the interpreter works:

python -m pip install de-eli-mcp
python -m de_eli_mcp

pip.exe is blocked for the same reason, so install with python -m pip, not pip install. If python is not on PATH, use the Windows launcher: py -3 -m de_eli_mcp.

{ "mcpServers": { "de-eli-mcp": { "command": "python", "args": ["-m", "de_eli_mcp"] } } }

Do not turn Smart App Control off to work around this - it cannot be re-enabled without reinstalling Windows.

Building from source: see Install.

An MCP server for German law: NeuRIS (rechtsinformationen.bund.de) for federal legislation, three case-law sources - NeuRIS's beta case-law slice, the complete federal-courts aggregator rechtsprechung-im-internet.de (RII, official BMJ/juris portal) for BVerfG, BGH, BAG, BFH, BVerwG, BSG (+ BPatG), and Open Legal Data (de.openlegaldata.io, ~424k decisions from ~1 100 courts of ALL levels, including the state courts of all 16 Laender, with full-text search) - plus the Bundestag's DIP (dip.bundestag.de) for parliamentary documents and legislative history (~287k Drucksachen with full text, plenary transcripts, ~335k legislative procedures, Bundestag AND Bundesrat).

Part of the MateMatic eu-legal-mcp production line: the German counterpart of the Polish sejm-eli-mcp, built on the same architecture and citation contract against the German source.

Beta source (legislation + de_case_search). NeuRIS is an official but beta service; its dataset is not yet complete. Every response carries a dataset_note saying so.

Complete source (case law). de_rii_case_search / de_rii_get_case_text query rechtsprechung-im-internet.de directly. Per an independent audit (Legal Data Hunter, worldwidelaw/legal-sources), RII's coverage of BVerfG, BGH, BAG, BFH, BVerwG and BSG is marked status: complete - unlike NeuRIS's /v1/rechtsprechung, which only carries a small beta slice (and can drop fields such as ecli for the very same decision RII serves with a full ECLI - see BAG decision KARE600069049 / ECLI:DE:BAG:2024:... as a live example). Prefer the RII tools for these six courts.

State courts + full-text search (Open Legal Data). de_oldp_case_search / de_oldp_get_case query de.openlegaldata.io - a community open-data aggregator (Open Knowledge Foundation ecosystem, BMBF Prototypefund) of ~424k decisions from ~1 100 German courts at every level, including the state courts of all 16 Laender. It is NOT an official government service and does not claim completeness - for the six federal supreme courts prefer the RII tools; use OLDP for state case law and for full-text hunting (no other source here searches decision content).

Legislative history (Bundestag DIP). de_dip_search / de_dip_get_document query the parliament's official DIP API - Drucksachen (bills, motions, committee reports, government answers - the home of Gesetzesbegruendungen), plenary transcripts and legislative procedures, for Bundestag and Bundesrat. The Bundestag publishes a public API key on its help page (the current one is valid until end of May 2027 and ships as the default); set DE_DIP_API_KEY when it rotates or to use your own key.

Licence. German official works - statutes, ordinances, court decisions and official headnotes - are outside copyright under § 5 UrhG (gemeinfrei), which is the standard basis for reusing German legal data. NeuRIS is operated by the BMJV / DigitalService GmbH; RII is operated by the BMJ (juris GmbH). Neither publishes a separate API terms or key requirement. Open Legal Data's database is under ODbL v1.0 (the decisions themselves are gemeinfrei); DIP data is under Data licence Germany - attribution - 2.0 (dl-de/by-2-0). This connector only relays that public content, with attribution and a source_url. Caveat: NeuRIS is in test phase; re-check the terms at general availability. (This is a practitioner's read, not formal legal advice.)

Related MCP server: German Law MCP

The tools

Every response carries the contract: eli_uri (ELI e.g. eli/bund/bgbl-1/2017/s2097/2025-01-01/1/deu, or ECLI for RII case law e.g. ECLI:DE:BVerfG:2024:rk20241120.1bvr226823), human_readable_citation (e.g. BDSG (BGBl I, 2017 2097) or BVerfG, Kammerbeschluss vom 20.11.2024 - 1 BvR 2268/23), and source_url.

Install

cd de-eli-mcp
pip install -e .

Configure (Claude Code / any MCP client)

Copy .mcp.json.example and adjust if needed:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "de-eli-mcp": { "command": "de-eli-mcp" }
  }
}

Environment:

• DE_ELI_BASE_URL - default https://testphase.rechtsinformationen.bund.de

• DE_RII_BASE_URL - default https://www.rechtsprechung-im-internet.de

• DE_OLDP_BASE_URL - default https://de.openlegaldata.io

• DE_DIP_BASE_URL - default https://search.dip.bundestag.de

• DE_DIP_API_KEY - default: the public key the Bundestag documents on dip.bundestag.de/über-dip/hilfe/api (valid until end of May 2027; rotates ~yearly)

• DE_ELI_CACHE_DIR - default ~/.matematic/cache/de-eli

• DE_ELI_AUDIT_DIR - default ~/.matematic/audit

NeuRIS, RII and Open Legal Data are keyless. DIP needs an API key, but the Bundestag publishes a public one (shipped as the default) - zero setup either way.

Governance

• Public data only - read-only against public sources; no client data leaves the machine beyond search parameters.

• Audit log - every tool call appends one JSON line to ~/.matematic/audit/de-eli-mcp.jsonl.

• Network - the server talks to the four public sources above (NeuRIS, RII, Open Legal Data, DIP) and the local filesystem. Once, on first use, it also fetches a small configuration file (de-runtime.json.gz, updated source addresses) from this repository's GitHub Releases. That request carries no query content; GitHub's download counter for the file is the only usage signal we see. DE_ELI_RUNTIME_URL="" turns it off; the Claude plugin ships with it off. No LLM provider, no other telemetry.

• Verifiable citations - every response is independently checkable via source_url.

See CONSTITUTION.md (the binding rules) and DISCOVERY.md (the NeuRIS API map).

Tests

pip install -e ".[dev]"
# offline (fixtures)
pytest tests/test_instructions_drift.py tests/test_rii_client.py tests/test_oldp_client.py tests/test_dip_client.py -v
# live smokes (NeuRIS + RII + Open Legal Data + DIP)
pytest tests/test_smoke.py -v

Licence

Apache-2.0. © Matematic Solutions / Wieslaw Mazur.