How to give Claude access to federal rulemaking data

Claude can't browse regulations.gov on its own, and the raw data would be hard to use even if it could. A single high-profile rule can draw tens of thousands of public comments, most of them mass form-letter campaigns, with the substantive arguments buried inside attached PDFs. There is too much of it to paste into a chat window.

Government Context puts that data behind a single MCP server that Claude connects to directly. It covers federal dockets, proposed and final rules, and public comments that have been analyzed for stance and commenter type — plus the wider record around a rule: bills and votes in Congress, committee hearings, agency press releases, grant opportunities, lobbying disclosures, and federal awards. Once Claude is connected, you can ask it something like "which trade associations oppose the FMCSA broker-transparency rule, and what are they arguing?" and get an answer grounded in the actual comment record.

This guide shows you how to connect it. Setup takes about two minutes, and the free tier is enough to follow every step. You don't need a credit card.

What you'll be able to do

Once Claude is connected, it has a set of twenty tools (all prefixed gc_) for working with the federal policy record. You never call these by name. You ask in plain language and Claude picks the right tool:

The full tool set goes further. gc_list_comments filters a rule's comments by stance, commenter type, date, or attachments, and gc_get_comment reads one in full. gc_list_activity reports what has happened recently — documents posted, comment deadlines, press releases, grant postings, bill actions — for an agency, topic, bill, or anything else you track. A family of lookup tools (gc_get_bill, gc_get_legislator, gc_get_hearing, gc_get_agency, gc_get_press_release, and the rest) pulls the details of any record gc_search finds, and gc_list_follows and gc_unfollow manage your alert subscriptions.

What MCP is

MCP (the Model Context Protocol) is an open standard for connecting AI assistants to outside tools and data. Government Context runs an MCP server; Claude is an MCP client. Connecting the two is a one-time setup. Because MCP is a standard, the same server also works with other MCP clients like ChatGPT and Cursor, though this guide covers Claude. If you use ChatGPT, see connecting ChatGPT to federal regulatory data.

Before you start: get a free account

The MCP server requires a Government Context account so your connection is authenticated. That account is also how any alerts you set up find their way back to you. Signup is free:

1. Go to governmentcontext.com and create an account.
2. New accounts start on the free tier. You don't need a card.

You'll sign in through this same account when you connect Claude below. The connection uses OAuth, so you never copy an API key or paste a token anywhere.

The free tier covers search, rule details, comment reading, basic filters, and the corpus overview, on data up to one release cycle behind (public comments become visible after seven days). The paid plan adds the freshest data and the deeper analytics, including campaign and issue drill-downs and the position map. See free vs. paid below.

Connect Claude

Pick the surface you use. The MCP server URL is the same everywhere:

https://mcp.governmentcontext.com

claude.ai and Claude Desktop

Claude's web and desktop apps connect through custom connectors:

1. Open Settings, then Connectors.
2. Click Add custom connector.
3. Paste the server URL: https://mcp.governmentcontext.com
4. Click Add, then Connect. A browser window opens to sign in to your Government Context account and approve access.
5. The Government Context tools now appear in the connectors menu (the plug icon) in any new chat.

Claude Code

From your terminal, add the server as a remote HTTP MCP server:

claude mcp add --transport http government-context https://mcp.governmentcontext.com

Then, inside Claude Code, run:

/mcp

Choose government-context, then Authenticate. A browser window opens for the one-time OAuth sign-in. After that, /mcp shows the server as connected, and Claude Code can use the gc_ tools in any session in that project.

Slack (Claude Tag)

If your workspace uses Claude in Slack, an admin connects the Government Context connector once under the Claude app's connector settings, using the same https://mcp.governmentcontext.com URL and OAuth sign-in. After that, anyone on the team can @Claude in a channel and ask about a rule. Follows set up from Slack work like follows set up anywhere else: the alert digest arrives by email, on the cadence you pick.

Your first query

With the connector live, start a fresh chat and try a query like this:

Which trade associations oppose the FMCSA broker-transparency rule, and what are their main arguments?

Claude searches for the rule (gc_search), pulls its details and comment overview (gc_get_rulemaking), filters the comments to trade-association commenters that oppose it (gc_list_comments), and reads a few in full (gc_get_comment) before summarizing the arguments and naming the commenters it drew from. On regulations.gov the same task means reading comments by hand for an afternoon.

If a result is limited by the free tier, Claude will say so. The server returns a short note explaining what was withheld and that the paid plan includes it, so Claude can relay that instead of guessing.

More things to ask

A few prompts that map cleanly onto what's connected:

• "Give me a breakdown of the comments on Docket EPA-HQ-OAR-2023-0234. How many support versus oppose, and by what kind of commenter?" Claude runs the corpus analysis (gc_analyze_comments) and narrates the structure it returns.

• "Are the comments on this rule mostly a form-letter campaign or individually written?" This uses the campaign-versus-organic detection, so mass campaigns don't drown out the substantive comments.

• "What's the comment deadline on this proposed rule, and what stage is it at?" Comment-period status and regulatory stage come from gc_get_rulemaking.

• "What happened on rules from the Department of Transportation between two and one weeks ago?" This asks for a fully visible free-tier window in the recent-activity feed for an agency (gc_list_activity), which also covers press releases, grant postings, and bill actions.

• "Is anything moving in Congress on broker transparency? Any bills or hearings?" Legislative records come from the same search plus the lookup tools (gc_get_bill, gc_get_hearing).

• "Follow this docket and alert me weekly when new comments are posted." This creates a subscription (gc_follow) tied to your account, delivered as an email digest. Follows can target a rulemaking, a topic, an agency, an organization, a bill, a legislator, or a committee.

Free vs. paid

Free is one release cycle behind.

The free tier gives you search, rule and bill details, comment reading, and basic filters (stance, commenter type, date), plus the corpus overview, up to 25 active follows with daily or weekly alerts, and 100 tool calls per hour. Continuously updated sources — public comments, press releases, legislative and award events — become visible after a seven-day delay, and quarterly disclosures (lobbying, political giving) show the previous complete reporting period.

The paid plan ($500/mo per organization, currently labeled "Beta pricing") includes everything the free tier sees, plus current data with no delay, the latest lobbying and political-giving periods, federal grant opportunities, the deeper analytics (campaign and issue drill-downs, the position map), instant alerts, team seats, and 1,000 tool calls per hour.

Most gated list and overview calls return a useful visible subset and state what a paid plan would add. Paid-only filters (campaigns and issues), grants, and instant alert cadence return explicit upgrade guidance instead of silently changing the request. You can start free and upgrade when your team needs them.

To connect, add the server at https://mcp.governmentcontext.com and sign in with a free Government Context account. You don't need a card.