Bill Commons

Name: Bill Commons
Author: GDACS-droid

by GDACS-droidversion 1.0.0i★ –iRuns in the cloud

Registry nameorg.billcommons/bill-commons

Install

Overview

Description from the maker (original English)

Search 209k+ US state bills, all 50 states + DC: full text, sponsors, votes, status. Free.

PopNx MCP’s three pillars

These three are never merged into one score: opinions, measurements and popularity are different things.

User voiceiNo reviews yetReviews open together with accounts in a later step
Our basic checksi1 of 1 passedChecked from public information; code not scanned yet
UsageiNot measured yet★ –

What you can do with it

We have not written a plain-language summary for this one yet. Below are the facts we read from the registry.

Connection: Runs in the cloud
Transport: Streamable HTTP
Category: Search & AI memory

Install

Pick the AI app you use, then copy the settings.

Before you install

Basic checks: 1 of 1 passed
Runs on the maker’s server: what you ask it goes through their server.
The registry lists no key to fill in.

You need

Runs in the cloudNothing to install; it connects over the internet

Which app do you use?

ClaudeClaude CodeCursorVS CodeChatGPT

Pick your app above. We remember it, so next time the button says “Install in …”.

Works in Claude on the web, desktop and mobile:

Open Settings → Connectors
Press Add custom connector
Paste the address below and press Add
If it asks you to sign in, sign in with the maker

https://mcp.billcommons.org/mcp

Run this in your terminal

claude mcp add --transport http bill-commons https://mcp.billcommons.org/mcp

Open in Cursor

Or copy the settings yourself

Paste into .cursor/mcp.json in your project, or ~/.cursor/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bill-commons": {
      "url": "https://mcp.billcommons.org/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Your browser asks to open the app, then the app shows the settings and asks you to confirm. Key values are left empty for you to fill in.

Open in VS Code

Or copy the settings yourself

Paste into .vscode/mcp.json in your project

{
  "servers": {
    "bill-commons": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.billcommons.org/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Your browser asks to open the app, then the app shows the settings and asks you to confirm. Key values are left empty for you to fill in.

ChatGPT connects only to servers on the internet:

Open ChatGPT on the web → Settings → Connectors (Apps)
Press Create or Add (some plans need Developer mode under Advanced first)
Paste the address below, give it a name and save
If it asks you to sign in, sign in with the maker

https://mcp.billcommons.org/mcp

Menu names can differ slightly by plan and over time.

Your choice stays on this device in a cookie; no account needed.

These settings are generated from the maker’s registry entry. If the README says otherwise, follow the README.

What it can do

We have not read this server’s tool list yet; we check endpoints in rotation.

Basic checksi

We check information anyone can see; we have not read the code. Checks that do not apply are left out of the count. · Checked Nov 7, 2026

✓ Pass
Maker matches the repo
The registry name was verified against the domain billcommons.org (the registry checks domain ownership)
… Not checked yet
Still maintained
We have not read this repo from GitHub yet
… Not checked yet
Has a licence
We have not read this repo from GitHub yet
… Not checked yet
Endpoint responds
Not checked yet; we check endpoints in rotation
… Not checked yet
Sign-in with OAuth
Not checked yet; we check endpoints in rotation
… Not checked yet
No hidden instructions in tool descriptions
Not checked yet; we read the tool list when we check the endpoint

Compared with others in Search & AI memoryi

More stars than 0% of the other 7251 servers in this category
Published to the registry more recently than 26% of the other 7251 servers in this category
Basic checks equal to or better than 100% of the other 7251 servers in this category

Compared with every active server in this category in the registry. Stars count only when the publisher owns the repo.

Common questions

Is Bill Commons safe?

It passed 1 of 1 applicable basic checks. We have not read the code. Before adding a key or token, see what access the server asks for and use a key with only the permissions you need.

What keys or codes does it need?

The registry does not list a required key, though some servers ask you to sign in on first use.

Does it run on my computer or in the cloud?

It runs in the maker’s cloud. Connect over the internet with nothing to install, but what you send passes through the maker’s servers.

Is it still maintained?

The GitHub repo last changed –, and the latest version (1.0.0) reached the registry 3 months ago.

Which apps can use it?

Apps that support MCP, such as Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor and VS Code. It connects by URL, so apps that accept remote MCP servers work too, such as ChatGPT in developer mode.

What can I use instead?

In the same category: Context7, Codebase Memory, Exa

Alternatives

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Connect AI agents to Exa for web search, content fetching, and multi-step research.

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Install

README from the maker

Open the README

Copied from the maker’s repo as written. PopNx MCP has not reviewed or endorsed it. HTML, images and scripts are removed. Links lead off this site.

Bill Commons

Bill Commons is a public, open-source legislative search platform covering the current session/biennium for all 50 U.S. states plus DC. It provides a web search UI, a REST API, an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server, and a public status/coverage page. Public infrastructure first: no paywall on ordinary search or reasonable API use — anonymous callers get a generous daily cap (2,000 requests/day per IP, 5,000/day per /24 subnet); a free API key raises that further, and only high-volume/bulk use is paid. See /docs/bulk for API keys and full-corpus snapshots.

See docs/architecture/ARCHITECTURE.md for the locked architecture and data model.

Production

Web: https://billcommons.org (search UI + public status/coverage page at https://status.billcommons.org)
API: https://api.billcommons.org/api/v1 — interactive OpenAPI docs at https://api.billcommons.org/docs
MCP (Streamable HTTP): https://mcp.billcommons.org/mcp

Hosted on Railway (project billcommons: api, mcp, worker services + managed Postgres) and Vercel (project billcommons-web). See docs/operations/deployment-runbook.md for the full deploy/rollback procedure.

Use with Claude (or any MCP client)

The hosted MCP server gives AI assistants direct access to all 209k+ bills — no API key, no setup beyond one command:

claude mcp add bill-commons --transport http https://mcp.billcommons.org/mcp

Claude Desktop: Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector with URL https://mcp.billcommons.org/mcp. Cursor and other clients: add the same URL as a Streamable HTTP server in mcp.json.

Ten tools including search_legislation, get_bill_record, compare_bill_versions, and trace_legislative_history. Full walkthrough (including REST recipes for agents without MCP): https://billcommons.org/docs/agents

Architecture at a glance

                    ┌─────────────┐

users ─────────▶ │ apps/web │ Next.js, billcommons.org │ (Vercel) │ status.billcommons.org (rewrite → /coverage) └──────┬──────┘ │ HTTPS (NEXT_PUBLIC_API_BASE) ▼ ┌─────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ │ apps/api │◀──────▶│ apps/mcp │ Streamable HTTP │ FastAPI │ │ 10 MCP tools│ mcp.billcommons.org │ /api/v1 │ └──────────────┘ │ api.billcommons.org └──────┬──────┘ │ reads (SQLAlchemy) ▼ ┌─────────────────────────────┐ │ Postgres 16 (Railway) │ │ jurisdictions, sessions, │ │ bills, actions, sponsorships,│ │ votes, ingest_jobs, coverage │ └──────────────▲──────────────┘ │ writes (idempotent upserts) ┌──────────────┴──────────────┐ │ workers/ingest (worker svc) │ │ autoboot: seed → bootstrap →│ │ schedule-refresh → job loop │ │ sources: Open States bulk CSV│ │ (T2 bootstrap) + v3 API (T2 │ │ incremental, OPENSTATES_API_ │ │ KEY) + full-text fetcher │ └──────────────┬──────────────┘ ▼ RawStore (filesystem, RAWSTORE_ROOT volume in prod) — sha256-addressed raw payload archive

packages/schema (SQLAlchemy models + Alembic) is the single source of truth every other package/app imports from — no service owns its own copy of the data model.

Monorepo layout

apps/web        Next.js 15 (App Router, TS) — search UI + status page

apps/api FastAPI — REST API (/api/v1) apps/mcp MCP server (Streamable HTTP, mounted at /mcp) workers/ingest Ingestion workers, job queue, per-source adapters packages/schema SQLAlchemy models + Alembic migrations (single source of truth) packages/shared Shared Python utils: bill-number normalization, rawstore, http client packages/source-registry Per-jurisdiction source registry (data + loader) packages/search Search SQL builders / query parsing infra/docker Dockerfiles + docker-compose.yml (local stack) infra/deployment Railway/Vercel configs, DNS runbook docs/ Architecture, API, sources, operations, state-coverage docs data/registry Machine-readable registry (sessions, sources)

Local development setup

Prerequisites

Python 3.12
PostgreSQL 16 (with pg_trgm, unaccent, pgcrypto extensions available)
Node.js 20+ (for apps/web)

Python environment

python3 -m venv .venv

.venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt

This installs packages/schema and packages/shared as editable installs (single source of truth for the data model + shared utils), plus the worker package: .venv/bin/pip install -e workers/ingest. Install the API package too if you're working on it: .venv/bin/pip install -e apps/api.

Database

Set DATABASE_URL in your environment (or in ~/.config/billcommons/.env, which is read as a fallback and is never committed):

DATABASE_URL=postgresql://user:password@host:port/dbname

Requires Postgres 16 with the pg_trgm and unaccent extensions available (created by migration 0001). Run migrations:

cd packages/schema

../../.venv/bin/alembic upgrade head

Seeding data locally

# Seed all 51 jurisdictions/sessions/coverage rows from the registry:

.venv/bin/python -m billcommons_ingest seed-registry

Download a state's Open States bulk-CSV zip and ingest it (see

docs/operations/ingestion-runbook.md for the full command reference):

python3 workers/ingest/download_bulk.py --only NC .venv/bin/python -m billcommons_ingest bootstrap --state NC --zip data/bulkzips/NC_2025.zip .venv/bin/python -m billcommons_ingest recompute-coverage

Running the apps locally

# API (FastAPI, http://localhost:8000, docs at /docs)

.venv/bin/uvicorn main:app --app-dir apps/api --reload --port 8000

MCP server (Streamable HTTP, http://localhost:8400/mcp by default)

.venv/bin/python apps/mcp/server.py

Ingestion worker (long-running queue loop; runs schedule-refresh

periodically inside the same process)

.venv/bin/python -m billcommons_ingest worker

Web app (Next.js — separate from the Python stack)

cd apps/web npm install NEXT_PUBLIC_API_BASE=http://localhost:8000 npm run dev

Tests

.venv/bin/pytest packages/shared/tests

.venv/bin/pytest workers/ingest/tests .venv/bin/pytest apps/api/tests

Running the stack locally with Docker

cd infra/docker

docker compose up --build

This brings up Postgres, the API, the ingestion worker, and the MCP server. The web app (apps/web) is run separately via npm run dev during local development (see infra/docker/docker-compose.yml for the placeholder service definition).

Documentation

docs/architecture/ARCHITECTURE.md — locked architecture + data model
docs/SPEC.md — requirements digest / acceptance gate
docs/operations/deployment-runbook.md — Railway/Vercel deploy, rollback, smoke checklist
docs/operations/ingestion-runbook.md — CLI reference, job queue, refresh cadence
docs/operations/source-failure-runbook.md — stale zips, 401/429, robots blocks
docs/operations/backup-restore.md — pg_dump/restore, raw-data re-fetch
docs/operations/add-a-jurisdiction.md — onboarding a new territory/state
docs/state-coverage/methodology.md — coverage state machine, GREEN criteria
docs/api/examples.md — curl/Python/JavaScript examples against the live API
docs/sources/openstates-csv.md — Open States bulk CSV column mapping

License

Apache-2.0. See LICENSE and NOTICE for data attribution (Open States / Plural Policy, public-domain legislative data).

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md. This project follows the Contributor Covenant.

Security

See SECURITY.md for responsible disclosure.

Bill Commons

Overview

PopNx MCP’s three pillars

What you can do with it

Install

Before you install

What it can do

Basic checksi

Maker matches the repo

Still maintained

Has a licence

Endpoint responds

Sign-in with OAuth

No hidden instructions in tool descriptions

Compared with others in Search & AI memoryi

Common questions

Alternatives

Context7

Codebase Memory

Exa

README from the maker

Bill Commons

Production

Use with Claude (or any MCP client)

Architecture at a glance

Monorepo layout

Local development setup

Prerequisites

Python environment

Database

Seeding data locally

Download a state's Open States bulk-CSV zip and ingest it (see

docs/operations/ingestion-runbook.md for the full command reference):

Running the apps locally

MCP server (Streamable HTTP, http://localhost:8400/mcp by default)

Ingestion worker (long-running queue loop; runs schedule-refresh

periodically inside the same process)

Web app (Next.js — separate from the Python stack)

Tests

Running the stack locally with Docker

Documentation

License

Contributing

Security