What is openstates-mcp-server?

An MCP server for searching bills, legislators, committees, and events across all US states, Washington, DC, and five US territories. MCP lets an AI model call these searches through a standard connection.

Use it to look up proposed laws, elected officials, committees, and legislative events through a local or HTTP server.

It removes the need to build and maintain separate search connections for this legislative data.

openstates-mcp-server — Plugin for Claude Code by cyanheads

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/cyanheads/openstates-mcp-server

Made for: Claude Code.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/plugins/cyanheads/openstates-mcp-server/openstates-mcp-server/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/plugins/cyanheads/openstates-mcp-server/openstates-mcp-server)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/plugins/cyanheads/openstates-mcp-server/openstates-mcp-server"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/plugins/cyanheads/openstates-mcp-server/openstates-mcp-server/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/plugins/cyanheads/openstates-mcp-server/openstates-mcp-server"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/plugins/cyanheads/openstates-mcp-server/openstates-mcp-server.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session not measured What this adds to a session before it is invoked.

When invoked not measured The manifest loads nothing itself; its 33 skills, 1 MCP server cost 2,508 tokens a session between them.

Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.

Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.

Security

Grade A, and why

openstates-mcp-server scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 13d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

.claude-plugin/plugin.json · 44 lines

What it actually says

{
  "$schema": "https://json.schemastore.org/claude-code-plugin-manifest.json",
  "name": "openstates-mcp-server",
  "version": "0.3.3",
  "description": "Search bills, legislators, committees, and events across all 50 US states, DC, and 5 US territories via MCP. STDIO or Streamable HTTP.",
  "author": {
    "name": "cyanheads",
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "url": "https://caseyjhand.com"
  },
  "homepage": "https://github.com/cyanheads/openstates-mcp-server#readme",
  "repository": "https://github.com/cyanheads/openstates-mcp-server",
  "license": "Apache-2.0",
  "keywords": [
    "mcp",
    "mcp-server",
    "model-context-protocol",
    "legislation",
    "openstates",
    "state-legislature",
    "bills",
    "legislators"
  ],
  "userConfig": {
    "OPENSTATES_API_KEY": {
      "type": "string",
      "title": "Open States API key",
      "description": "Required. API key from open.pluralpolicy.com/accounts/profile.",
      "sensitive": true,
      "required": true
    }
  },
  "mcpServers": {
    "openstates-mcp-server": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@cyanheads/openstates-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "OPENSTATES_API_KEY": "${user_config.OPENSTATES_API_KEY}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Contents

What it installs

The manifest is a name and a version. 33 skills, 1 MCP server travel with it, and installing the plugin installs all of them — 2,508 tokens a session between them. Each is measured on its own page, and each can be installed alone.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

13d ago Changed 433e4465521c
1mo ago Changed · +22 lines 649a6aeae567
1mo ago First seen · 22 lines scan A fffff6d830cf

Subscribe to this mod's changes

openstates-mcp-server is a plugin published in the GitHub repository cyanheads/openstates-mcp-server (2 stars, last pushed 14d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. Its token cost is not measured: this kind of file is read by the harness, not the model. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

Legal and compliance Research ai bun legislation mcp mcp-server model-context-protocol

openstates-mcp-server

Getting it into your agent

Wrote this? Show the measurements

Grade A, and why

Nothing flagged

What it actually says

What it installs

What this file has done since we first saw it

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