OpenBudget MCP server

The OpenBudget MCP Server provides access to Israel's budget data, contracts, and support information through a Model Context Protocol interface. It connects OpenBudget API data to MCP clients, making governmental financial data easily accessible for queries and analysis.

Requirements

• Python 3.10 or higher
• uv package manager

Installation

To install the OpenBudget MCP Server, follow these steps:

git clone <repository-url>
cd OpenBudget-mcp
uv venv
.venv\Scripts\activate
uv pip install -r pyproject.toml
uv lock

Running the Server

You can run the server using one of these methods:

With Visual Studio Code (using Copilot)

1. Open the project in VS Code
2. Go to the .vscode/mcp.json file and replace {YOUR-LOCAL-PATH} with the path where you cloned the repository
3. VS Code should automatically discover your server
4. If the server isn't discovered, ensure MCP & MCP.Discovery are enabled in VS Code settings
5. Make sure to enable agent mode in your VS Code Copilot

With Claude AI Assistant

fastmcp install server.py

For Testing with MCP Inspector

fastmcp dev server.py

Available Datasets

The server provides access to these datasets:

• budget_items_data
• income_items_data
• supports_data
• contracts_data
• entities_data
• budgetary_change_requests_data
• budgetary_change_transactions_data

Using MCP Tools

Getting Dataset Information

Use the get_dataset_info tool to retrieve information about a dataset's structure, including columns and database schema.

Searching Datasets

The search_dataset tool allows you to perform full-text searches within any dataset.

Querying Datasets

Execute SQL queries on datasets using the query_dataset tool.

MCP Resources

Listing Available Datasets

Use the available_datasets resource to get a list of all available datasets you can work with.

Error Handling

The server will return appropriate error messages in these cases:

• Invalid dataset name
• Invalid SQL query
• API request failures
• Network connectivity issues

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "openbudget" '{"command":"fastmcp","args":["dev","server.py"]}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "openbudget": {
            "command": "fastmcp",
            "args": [
                "dev",
                "server.py"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

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

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "openbudget": {
            "command": "fastmcp",
            "args": [
                "dev",
                "server.py"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect