Federal Register MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides AI assistants with access to the Federal Register API. This enables searching and retrieving executive orders, presidential documents, rules, and agency information.

What is MCP?

MCP is a protocol that allows AI assistants like Claude to interact with external tools and data sources. This server exposes Federal Register data as a set of tools that can be called by AI assistants.

Features

• Executive Orders: Search, retrieve, and get full text of executive orders by president, year, date range, or keyword
• Presidential Documents: Search memoranda and proclamations
• Federal Register Documents: Search and retrieve any document type (rules, proposed rules, notices)
• Agency Information: List all federal agencies or get details about specific agencies
• Public Inspection: View documents before official publication

Roadmap

• Hosted version - Deploy a public instance so users can connect without running locally
• Legislation tracking - Integrate Congress.gov API and Open States for federal and state legislation
• Enriched metadata - Add categories, correlations between executive orders and legislation, impacted populations, and other analytical data
• UI experience - Leverage OpenAI Apps to provide a visual interface for exploring executive and legislative data

Installation

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/federal-register-mcp.git
cd federal-register-mcp

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build TypeScript
npm run build

Usage

This server supports two transport modes:

Claude Desktop (stdio mode)

Add this to your Claude Desktop configuration file:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "federal-register": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/federal-register-mcp/dist/server.js"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Code (stdio or HTTP mode)

Option 1: stdio (local)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "federal-register": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/federal-register-mcp/dist/server.js"]
    }
  }
}

Option 2: HTTP (local or remote)

Start the server in HTTP mode:

npm run start:http

Then configure Claude Code to connect to the HTTP endpoint:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "federal-register": {
      "url": "http://localhost:3000/mcp"
    }
  }
}

ChatGPT (HTTP mode, requires public URL)

ChatGPT cannot connect to localhost. You need to expose the server publicly:

Option 1: ngrok (for development)

# Terminal 1: Start the server
npm run start:http

# Terminal 2: Create a tunnel
ngrok http 3000

Then use the ngrok URL (e.g., https://abc123.ngrok.io/mcp) in ChatGPT.

Option 2: Deploy to a cloud host (for production)

Deploy to any HTTPS-capable host:

• Cloudflare Workers
• Fly.io
• Railway
• Vercel
• AWS / GCP / Azure

The MCP endpoint will be at https://your-host.com/mcp.

Running Directly

# stdio mode (default) - for Claude Desktop
npm start

# HTTP mode - for Claude Code, ChatGPT
npm run start:http

# HTTP mode with custom port
node dist/server.js --http --port 8080

# Or use environment variable
MCP_PORT=8080 npm run start:http

Development

# Edit files in src/*.ts, then build
npm run build

# Or use watch mode for auto-recompile
npm run dev

Health Check (HTTP mode)

When running in HTTP mode, a health endpoint is available:

curl http://localhost:3000/health
# {"status":"ok","mode":"http","sessions":0}

Available Tools

Example Queries

Once configured, you can ask Claude questions like:

• "What executive orders has Joe Biden signed about climate change?"
• "Show me Trump's executive orders from his second term (2025)"
• "Get the full text of Executive Order 14067"
• "What documents are on public inspection today?"
• "Find all proposed rules from the EPA in 2024"

API Reference

This server uses the Federal Register API v1. The API is free and requires no authentication.

• Federal Register API Documentation
• Federal Register Developers Page

Project Structure

federal-register-mcp/
├── src/
│   ├── server.ts              # MCP server implementation
│   └── federal-register-api.ts # Federal Register API client
├── dist/                      # Compiled JavaScript (generated)
├── tsconfig.json
├── package.json
└── README.md

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.