What Do They Know?
UK Freedom of Information research, the UK's largest FOI request platform — search requests, read responses, look up public authorities, and draft new requests.
whatdotheyknow-mcp
A Model Context Protocol server for UK Freedom of Information research. Connects AI assistants to WhatDoTheyKnow — the UK's largest FOI request platform — to search requests, read responses, look up public authorities, and draft new requests.
Tools
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
search_request_events | Full-text search of FOI requests and responses via WhatDoTheyKnow's Atom feed. Supports structured expressions (status:successful, body:"Liverpool City Council"). |
search_authorities | Search UK public authorities by name. Returns slug for use with other tools. |
get_request_feed_items | Fetch the event timeline (sent, response, clarification) for a specific FOI request. |
build_request_url | Build a prefilled WhatDoTheyKnow request URL for a given authority and topic. |
create_request_record | Create a request via the write API (requires WDTK_API_KEY). |
update_request_state | Update user-assessed state of a request (requires WDTK_API_KEY). |
Resources
| URI template | Returns |
|---|---|
wdtk://authorities/{authority_slug} | Authority profile JSON |
wdtk://requests/{request_slug} | FOI request detail JSON |
wdtk://users/{user_slug} | User profile JSON |
wdtk://requests/{request_slug}/feed | Request event Atom feed |
wdtk://users/{user_slug}/feed | User activity Atom feed |
wdtk://authorities/all.csv | Full CSV of all UK public authorities |
Prompts
| Prompt | Description |
|---|---|
draft_foi_request | Draft a narrow, specific FOI request for a given authority and topic. |
Connect
Hosted (no install)
{
"mcpServers": {
"whatdotheyknow": {
"type": "http",
"url": "https://whatdotheyknow-mcp.fly.dev/mcp"
}
}
}
Local (uvx)
{
"mcpServers": {
"whatdotheyknow": {
"type": "stdio",
"command": "uvx",
"args": ["whatdotheyknow-mcp"]
}
}
}
Environment variables
| Variable | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
WDTK_API_KEY | Optional | Enables create_request_record and update_request_state write tools |
Upstream API and Licence
| Source | API | Licence | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|
| WhatDoTheyKnow | www.whatdotheyknow.com | OGL v3 | None (read) / API key (write) |
Data is sourced directly from the WhatDoTheyKnow public API. The platform is operated by mySociety.
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