@pipeworx/gov-uk-content

GOV.UK Content API MCP — the rendered content + metadata behind every page on gov.uk. Keyless.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1683+ live data sources.

Tools

• content(base_path) — content for a gov.uk page (e.g. /jobsearch, /government/organisations/cabinet-office)

• search(query, count?, start?, filter_format?) — full GOV.UK search

• organisations(start?, count?) — list organisations (departments, agencies, …)

• taxons(base_path?) — taxonomy tree node

• search_autocomplete(query) — autocomplete on the search index

Related MCP server: GovUK MCP Server

Data sources

• Content API: https://www.gov.uk/api/content/

• Search API: https://www.gov.uk/api/search.json

UK departmental manuals (fleet #1972)

Topic-level discovery over the largest body of official interpretation on GOV.UK. All of it was reachable before only if you already knew the base_path of the page you wanted — which is the one thing a caller asking a tax question does not know.

Measured 2026-09-14 against www.gov.uk/api/search.json:

• hmrc_manuals(query?, include_other_departments?, count?, start?) — which manuals exist, with their base_paths.

• hmrc_manual_search(query, manual?, include_other_departments?, count?, start?) — a UK tax question in plain words → the sections that answer it, each with section_id, published_at, age_days. manual accepts either "employment-income-manual" or the full /hmrc-internal-manuals/employment-income-manual.

• hmrc_manual_section(base_path | manual + section_id, max_chars?) — one section's full text, with withdrawn, first_published_at, published_at, age_days.

• hmrc_manual_changes(manual, since?, section_id?, limit?) — HMRC's own per-section revision log, newest first.

The freshness trap, written down because it returns a clean 200

A manual's details.change_notes[] is a complete revision history served oldest first — 1,025 entries for the Employment Income Manual, running 2016-08-02 to 2026-09-11. Reading change_notes[0] as "the latest change" reports a ten-year-old edit as today's news, with no error anywhere. hmrc_manual_changes sorts explicitly by published_at descending rather than reversing, so a change in upstream ordering cannot silently invert the answer.

A section's own public_updated_at is the reliable per-section date and is what every tool here returns as source_last_modified. Note it does not equal the section's first change note: EIM42776 has a change note published 2016-08-02 and a public_updated_at of 2022-06-27.

Licence

Crown copyright, reproduced under the Open Government Licence v3.0 — commercial reuse permitted with attribution. These tools proxy www.gov.uk live per request.

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gov-uk-content": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/gov-uk-content/mcp"
    }
  }
}

What this endpoint actually serves

tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/gov-uk-content/mcp returns the tools in the table above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx, discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and is the authoritative answer for a given day.

This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth, connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.

Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipeworx": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1683+ data sources. The only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx reaches all of them from either one.

No MCP client? Call it over HTTP

curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/content \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"base_path":"/guidance/apply-for-a-uk-visa"}'

No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/content. Find one: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs with {"query":"..."}.

Standalone (no gateway account)

This package also runs as a local stdio MCP server — no Pipeworx account, no gateway round-trip:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gov-uk-content": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-gov-uk-content"]
    }
  }
}

Or run it directly to confirm it starts:

npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-gov-uk-content

It speaks MCP over stdin/stdout and answers initialize/tools/list/tools/call for only this pack's tools — none of the shared meta-tools the gateway connection above adds. Same source, same tools, no ask_pipeworx routing.

Using with ask_pipeworx

Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:

ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about Gov Uk Content data" })

The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.

More

• Docs and guides

• pipeworx.io

License

MIT