OpenCityRecord

npx add-mcp 'https://mcp.opencityrecord.org/mcp'

Create your free account

Email or Google, no credit card. You'll pick the city you follow right after; you can change it whenever you like.

Connect it to your AI

Pick your tool below. The fastest route is the copy button — paste it into your AI and it walks you through its own settings.

Let Claude set itself up

Copy this and paste it into Claude. It walks you through its own settings, one step at a time — you don't have to follow the instructions below yourself.

Or do it yourself — about 30 seconds

1. In Claude, open Settings → Connectors. Click the “Add” dropdown at the top right, then choose “Add custom connector” — the dropdown is the step people miss.
2. Fill in the two fields below and save.
3. Claude sends you here to approve access — one-time OAuth, no token to copy.

Name

OpenCity

Remote MCP Server URL

https://mcp.opencityrecord.org The bare origin, with no /mcp on the end — Claude appends its own discovery path.

Step 1 of 4: Open Settings → Connectors

https://mcp.opencityrecord.org ← Claude and ChatGPT only

https://mcp.opencityrecord.org/mcp ← every other client

Claude Code · Codex CLI · scripts

Sign in to generate a bearer token, then drop it into your client's MCP config. Full snippets for claude mcp add, ~/.codex/config.toml, and Cursor's mcp.json are on your account page.

See full setup snippets →

Check that it's really working

“Connected” and “actually answering from our data” are different things. This takes ten seconds and settles it.

Paste this into your AI. It works for any city we cover — Lehi is just a known-good example.

Use OpenCity MCP to list the elected officials in Lehi, Utah, with their titles. Tell me which OpenCity tool you called.

✓ What a working answer looks like

A list of real people — a mayor and several council members, by name, with their titles — and a note that it called list_officials. If you get names and a tool name, you're done. Everything else on this page works too.

If that didn't happen

It answered from memory, without mentioning a tool.

The connector is installed but wasn't invoked. Say "use the OpenCity connector" explicitly, then paste the standing directive below so you don't have to keep asking.

It says it has no access, or returns nothing at all.

You're probably signed in but haven't picked your city yet. Set it on your plan page — it takes a few seconds and applies within a minute.

It doesn't list OpenCity as an available tool.

The connector didn't finish installing. Re-run the setup step above; on ChatGPT, custom connectors need a paid plan.

Ask it the good questions

Four things worth trying, each exercising a different part of the record — who serves, what was said, how an issue moved, and what just got decided.

Find your officials

“Use OpenCity MCP to list the elected officials in my city, with their roles.”

Find who said what

“Use OpenCity MCP to find what officials said about housing affordability at recent meetings, and quote them with links to the meeting.”

Follow an issue

“Use OpenCity MCP to show me how the short-term rental ordinance moved through the council, meeting by meeting.”

Catch up on decisions

“Use OpenCity MCP to show me everything my council decided in the last 30 days, and flag anything touching zoning or property taxes.”

About credits

What is a credit?

One request against the record. How that maps to what you did depends on how you asked.

In the website chat, a question costs one credit however many searches it runs behind the scenes — you are charged for what you asked, not for how it was answered.

Through the MCP connector, each request your assistant makes costs one credit, so a single question to Claude or Cursor may spend several. We only ever see the individual calls; the conversation they belong to happens inside your assistant.

Do the chat and the connector share one allowance?

Yes. One subscription, one monthly pool, spent through whichever surface you prefer. Using the chat does not eat into a separate connector budget or the other way round.

What does not cost a credit?

Reading the site. Searching on the website, opening a meeting, following an item, saving a watch and receiving email are all free and always will be — they are the public record, and charging for reading it would defeat the point.

Credits are for programmatic and conversational access: the connector, the chat, and AI search with an account attached.

What happens when I run out?

Requests are refused until the month rolls over, with a message saying so rather than a silent failure. Nothing is deleted, no watch stops running, and no email stops arriving — the allowance governs asking, not what you have already set up.

Where can I see what I have spent?

Your account's usage page breaks the month down by surface — the website chat, each connected assistant, AI search — showing credits alongside the number of events each produced. The two differ, and the difference is the fan-out described above.

One more paste

Make your AI reach for OpenCity on its own

Connecting the server doesn't guarantee your AI uses it — left to itself it will often answer a question about your council from memory instead of looking it up. Paste this directive once, wherever your AI keeps its standing instructions, and you won't have to ask for OpenCity by name again.

1. Open Settings → Personalization → Custom instructions.
2. Paste the text below into "Anything else ChatGPT should know about you".
3. Save. It applies to every new chat.

When I ask about local or city government — city councils, mayors, council
members, ordinances, resolutions, zoning, development permits, meeting agendas
or minutes, public comment, or city budgets — always use the OpenCity connector
to look up the answer before you respond. Quote what was actually said or
written and link the meeting or document you got it from. If OpenCity returns
nothing for my question, tell me it found nothing rather than answering from
general knowledge.

Paste it once. You won't have to say “use OpenCity” again.

Plans

Pick what fits how you follow your city

Every plan reads the same record — all meetings, all documents, every transcript. Two things change: how much of the map you get, and whether speakers are named. Free covers one city with quotes unattributed; Resident and above name every official and attribute their votes.

We're in beta — free through 1 January 2027, no credit card. Every new account gets full Premium access for at least 90 days, and never ending before 1 January 2027 — one date for the whole user base: every city in your state (add more states from your account), 100,000 calls a month. Pick a plan now and it takes over when your beta ends, or stay on Free and keep one city forever.

Free

One city

Free

• 1 city of your choice
• Every meeting, transcript, ordinance, and agenda for it
• Speakers are not identified — quotes come back unattributed
• 1,000 credits / month
• Free forever. No credit card. Sign in / Sign up free

Resident

Three cities, named

$9/mo

• Up to 3 cities — your town and its neighbours
• Every elected official named, every vote attributed
• Track how one official's position changed over time
• 2,500 credits / month
• Free for your first 90 days — longer if you joined before October

Statewide

One state

$79/mo

• 1 state — every city we cover in it
• Every official named, every vote attributed
• 5,000 credits / month
• Compare cities across your state
• Free for your first 90 days — longer if you joined before October Get Statewide

Pro

Ten states

$149/mo

• Any 10 states, your pick
• 25,000 credits / month
• Cross-state comparison
• Priority on coverage requests
• Free for your first 90 days — longer if you joined before October Get Pro

Premium

All states

$499/mo

• Every state we cover
• 100,000 credits / month
• Nationwide cross-state queries
• Direct support channel
• Free for your first 90 days — longer if you joined before October Get Premium