@cyanheads/openfec-mcp-server
Access FEC campaign finance data through MCP. Query data about candidates, money trails, and election filings. STDIO & Streamable HTTP.
12 Tools • 5 Resources • 2 Prompts
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**Public Hosted Server:** [https://openfec.caseyjhand.com/mcp](https://openfec.caseyjhand.com/mcp)
---
## Tools
Twelve tools for querying federal election campaign finance data:
| Tool Name | Description |
|:----------|:------------|
| `openfec_search_candidates` | Find federal candidates by name, state, office, party, or cycle. |
| `openfec_search_committees` | Find political committees by name, type, candidate affiliation, or state. |
| `openfec_get_committee_totals` | Get pre-aggregated committee financial totals for one committee, or rank committees of one entity type. |
| `openfec_search_contributions` | Search itemized individual contributions or aggregate breakdowns by size, state, employer, or occupation. |
| `openfec_search_disbursements` | Search itemized committee spending or aggregate breakdowns by purpose or recipient. |
| `openfec_search_expenditures` | Search independent expenditures supporting or opposing federal candidates. |
| `openfec_search_coordinated_expenditures` | Search coordinated party expenditures (Schedule F) made on behalf of a candidate. |
| `openfec_search_filings` | Search FEC filings and reports by committee, candidate, form type, or date range. |
| `openfec_lookup_elections` | Look up election races and candidate financial summaries. |
| `openfec_search_legal` | Search FEC legal documents: advisory opinions, enforcement cases, and administrative fines. |
| `openfec_get_legal_document` | Fetch one legal document in full, including the arrays legal search trims away. |
| `openfec_lookup_calendar` | Look up FEC calendar events, filing deadlines, and election dates. |
### `openfec_search_candidates`
Find federal candidates with optional financial totals.
- Full-text name search plus filters for state, district, office, party, cycle, incumbent status
- Fetch a specific candidate by FEC ID (H/S/P prefix) with full detail
- Optional financial totals: receipts, disbursements, cash on hand
- Pagination up to 100 results per page
---
### `openfec_search_committees`
Find political committees (campaign, PAC, Super PAC, party).
- Full-text name search plus filters for type, designation, party, state, candidate affiliation
- Fetch a specific committee by FEC ID (C prefix)
- Committee types: House, Senate, Presidential, Super PAC, PAC, Party
- Treasurer name search
---
### `openfec_get_committee_totals`
Pre-aggregated committee finances, without paginating Schedule A.
- **single**: One committee's totals, one row per two-year cycle it filed
- **by_entity_type**: Every committee of one type — presidential, pac, party, pac-party, house-senate, ie-only
- Receipts, disbursements, cash on hand, debts, and the itemized/unitemized contribution split
- Grouped mode filters by state, committee type, designation, organization type, and receipts/disbursements thresholds
---
### `openfec_search_contributions`
Search Schedule A contribution data with five query modes.
- **itemized**: Individual contribution records with keyset cursor pagination
- **by_size**: Aggregate breakdowns by contribution size range
- **by_state**: Geographic breakdown of contributions
- **by_employer**: Top employer aggregates
- **by_occupation**: Top occupation aggregates
- Filters: donor name, employer, occupation, city, state, ZIP, date range, amount range
---
### `openfec_search_disbursements`
Search Schedule B spending data with four query modes.
- **itemized**: Individual disbursement records with keyset cursor pagination
- **by_purpose**: Aggregate by spending purpose category
- **by_recipient**: Aggregate by payee name
- **by_recipient_id**: Aggregate by recipient committee ID
- Filters: recipient name, description, date range, amount range
---
### `openfec_search_expenditures`
Search Schedule E independent expenditure data.
- **itemized**: Individual expenditure records with support/oppose indicator; scoped to the current cycle unless another is given
- **by_candidate**: Aggregated totals per targeted candidate, scoped by candidate ID or by a whole race (office alone for President, plus state for Senate, plus district as well for House)
- Filters: committee, candidate, office, party, 24/48-hour notices, date and amount range
---
### `openfec_search_coordinated_expenditures`
Search Schedule F coordinated party expenditures.
- Party committee spending made on behalf of a candidate, in coordination with that campaign — a separate legal category from independent expenditures and from direct contributions
- Filters: spending committee, benefiting candidate, cycle, payee name, date range, amount range
- Page-based pagination; the shared spending committee is hoisted out of the rows when the query names one
---
### `openfec_search_filings`
Search FEC filings and reports.
- Form types: F3 (House/Senate quarterly), F3P (Presidential), F3X (PAC/party), F24 (24-hour IE notice), F1/F2 (organizational/candidacy), F5 (IE by persons)
- Report type codes: Q1/Q2/Q3, YE, monthly, pre/post election
- Amendment filtering with most-recent-only option
- Date range filtering by FEC receipt date
---
### `openfec_search_legal`
Search across FEC legal document types.
- Advisory opinions, MURs (enforcement cases), ADRs, administrative fines, statutes
- Look up specific cases by AO number or case number
- Filter by respondent, regulatory/statutory citation, penalty amount range
- Date filtering is type-scoped: pick a `date_kind` the document type records (advisory opinions issue/request/document, cases open/close/document, admin fines RTB/final determination)
- Offset-based pagination (up to 200 results per page)
---
### `openfec_get_legal_document`
Fetch one legal document in full by type and number.
- Returns the full `documents` array that `openfec_search_legal` replaces with a count and category summary, and the complete `commission_votes` it cuts down to a date and a truncated action
- `doc_type` is the plural of a search result's `document_type` (`mur` → `murs`); `no` is that result's `no` field, which every document type carries
- Reports how many related filings the record carries, so it can be checked against the search result's `document_count`
---
### `openfec_lookup_elections`
Look up federal election races.
- **search**: Candidates in a race with financial totals
- **summary**: Aggregate race financial summary
- Office types: H (House), S (Senate), P (President)
- ZIP code lookup to find races covering a location
- Full election period expansion (4yr president, 6yr senate, 2yr house)
---
### `openfec_lookup_calendar`
Look up FEC dates and deadlines.
- **events**: FEC calendar events
- **filing_deadlines**: Report due dates by type and year
- **election_dates**: Upcoming and past election dates by state and office
- Date range filtering
## Resources
| URI Pattern | Description |
|:------------|:------------|
| `openfec://candidate/{candidate_id}` | Federal candidate profile with current financial totals. |
| `openfec://committee/{committee_id}` | Political committee profile with type, designation, and financial summary. |
| `openfec://election/{cycle}/{office}` | Presidential or at-large election race with candidate financial totals. |
| `openfec://election/{cycle}/{office}/{state}` | Senate or state-level election race with candidate financial totals. |
| `openfec://election/{cycle}/{office}/{state}/{district}` | House district election race with candidate financial totals. |
## Prompts
| Prompt | Description |
|:-------|:------------|
| `openfec_campaign_analysis` | Structured analysis of a candidate's financial position — fundraising trajectory, burn rate, cash reserves, donor composition, and opponent comparison. |
| `openfec_money_trail` | Framework for tracing the flow of money around a candidate or race — direct fundraising, PAC support, independent expenditures, and party spending. |
## Features
Built on [`@cyanheads/mcp-ts-core`](https://github.com/cyanheads/mcp-ts-core):
- Declarative tool definitions — single file per tool, framework handles registration and validation
- Unified error handling across all tools
- Pluggable auth (`none`, `jwt`, `oauth`)
- Swappable storage backends: `in-memory`, `filesystem`, `Supabase`, `Cloudflare KV/R2/D1`
- Structured logging with optional OpenTelemetry tracing
- Runs locally (stdio/HTTP) or via Docker from the same codebase
OpenFEC-specific:
- Type-safe client wrapping the [OpenFEC REST API](https://api.open.fec.gov/developers/)
- Multi-mode tools supporting both itemized records and aggregate breakdowns
- Keyset cursor pagination for high-volume Schedule A/B/E data
- Automatic retry with configurable timeout and max retries
- Error sanitization strips API keys from error messages; HTTP status errors enriched with actionable hints
- Two guided investigation prompts for campaign finance analysis workflows
## Getting Started
### Public Hosted Instance
A public instance is available at `https://openfec.caseyjhand.com/mcp` — no installation required. Point any MCP client at it via Streamable HTTP:
```json
{
"mcpServers": {
"openfec-mcp-server": {
"type": "streamable-http",
"url": "https://openfec.caseyjhand.com/mcp"
}
}
}
```
### Self-Hosted / Local
Add the following to your MCP client configuration file.
```json
{
"mcpServers": {
"openfec-mcp-server": {
"type": "stdio",
"command": "bunx",
"args": ["@cyanheads/openfec-mcp-server@latest"],
"env": {
"MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
"FEC_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
}
}
}
}
```
Or with Docker:
```json
{
"mcpServers": {
"openfec-mcp-server": {
"type": "stdio",
"command": "docker",
"args": ["run", "-i", "--rm", "-e", "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=stdio", "-e", "FEC_API_KEY=your-api-key", "ghcr.io/cyanheads/openfec-mcp-server:latest"]
}
}
}
```
For Streamable HTTP, set the transport and start the server:
```sh
MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=http MCP_HTTP_PORT=3010 FEC_API_KEY=your-key bun run start:http
# Server listens at http://localhost:3010/mcp
```
### Prerequisites
- [Bun v1.3.0](https://bun.sh/) or higher (or Node ≥24)
- (Optional) A free [OpenFEC API key](https://api.data.gov/signup/) for higher rate limits (1,000 req/hr vs 30 req/hr with the default `DEMO_KEY`)
### Installation
1. **Clone the repository:**
```sh
git clone https://github.com/cyanheads/openfec-mcp-server.git
```
2. **Navigate into the directory:**
```sh
cd openfec-mcp-server
```
3. **Install dependencies:**
```sh
bun install
```
## Configuration
| Variable | Description | Default |
|:---------|:------------|:--------|
| `FEC_API_KEY` | OpenFEC API key. Optional — defaults to `DEMO_KEY` (30 req/hr). Provide your own key (free at [api.data.gov/signup](https://api.data.gov/signup/)) for 1,000 req/hr. | `DEMO_KEY` |
| `FEC_BASE_URL` | OpenFEC API base URL. | `https://api.open.fec.gov/v1` |
| `FEC_MAX_RETRIES` | Max retry attempts for failed API requests. | `3` |
| `FEC_REQUEST_TIMEOUT` | Request timeout in milliseconds. | `30000` |
| `MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE` | Transport: `stdio` or `http`. | `stdio` |
| `MCP_HTTP_PORT` | Port for HTTP server. | `3010` |
| `MCP_HTTP_HOST` | Hostname for HTTP server. | `localhost` |
| `MCP_AUTH_MODE` | Auth mode: `none`, `jwt`, or `oauth`. | `none` |
| `MCP_LOG_LEVEL` | Log level (RFC 5424). | `info` |
| `LOGS_DIR` | Directory for log files (Node.js only). | `/logs` |
| `STORAGE_PROVIDER_TYPE` | Storage backend. | `in-memory` |
| `OTEL_ENABLED` | Enable [OpenTelemetry instrumentation](https://github.com/cyanheads/mcp-ts-core/tree/main/docs/telemetry) (spans, metrics, completion logs). | `false` |
## Running the Server
### Local Development
- **Build and run:**
```sh
bun run rebuild
bun run start:stdio # or start:http
```
- **Run checks and tests:**
```sh
bun run devcheck # Lint, format, typecheck, security audit
bun run test # Runs test suite
```
## Project Structure
| Directory | Purpose |
|:----------|:--------|
| `src/mcp-server/tools/definitions/` | Tool definitions (`*.tool.ts`). |
| `src/mcp-server/resources/definitions/` | Resource definitions (`*.resource.ts`). |
| `src/mcp-server/prompts/definitions/` | Prompt definitions (`*.prompt.ts`). |
| `src/services/openfec/` | OpenFEC API client and domain types. |
| `src/config/` | Environment variable parsing and validation with Zod. |
| `tests/` | Unit and integration tests. |
| `scripts/` | Build, clean, devcheck, tree, and lint scripts. |
| `docs/` | Design docs and OpenAPI spec. |
## Development Guide
See [`CLAUDE.md`](./CLAUDE.md) for development guidelines and architectural rules. The short version:
- Handlers throw, framework catches — no `try/catch` in tool logic
- Use `ctx.log` for domain-specific logging, `ctx.state` for storage
- Register new tools and resources in the `index.ts` barrel files
## Contributing
Issues and pull requests are welcome. Run checks before submitting:
```sh
bun run devcheck
bun run test
```
## License
Apache-2.0 — see [LICENSE](LICENSE) for details.