AI Agents Meet Federal Data: Public Preview for the GovInfo MCP Server

GPO is bridging the gap between official Federal Government information and the next generation of artificial intelligence. We are proud to announce the public preview of the GovInfo Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that will enhance access to GovInfo content for large language models (LLMs), specifically artificial intelligence (AI). MCP is an emerging industry standard that enables systems to create specific tools for LLMs to interact with, without requiring those systems to train their own custom models. Training LLM models is time-consuming and expensive, and MCP allows LLMs to access more up-to-date information than they may have been trained on.

For the first time, GPO is providing an officially supported method to allow the use of LLMs and AI agents to “converse” with GovInfo, the world’s only certified trustworthy digital repository. This could benefit legal researchers, policy analysts, data consumers, government users, academics, compliance assistants, and many other users.

Is GovInfo implementing AI and what does this mean for users?

If you are using the GovInfo website or API, nothing has changed.

Through the GovInfo MCP, GPO is providing tools that enable LLM agents to take user prompts and then access up-to-date GovInfo content and metadata. The GovInfo MCP will provide the same response back to any LLM making the same request, acting as a universal API for AI agents to access live information and perform actions. Depending on the LLM and the user request, the LLM may take additional steps that will require user review.

The GovInfo team remains steadfastly committed to serving as a trustworthy platform providing free permanent public access to official Federal publications. In addition to the existing website and API, which are not changing, the GovInfo MCP will serve a new set of “users”.

With the addition of MCP, there are now three primary interfaces that access the same underlying data:

• Web User Interface (UI): humans
• API: programmatic and machine access
• MCP: LLM and AI access

What does the public preview look like? Where can I learn more?

This initial release provides basic search and retrieval capabilities, allowing the development community to provide feedback. More information is available in GPO's API GitHub repository, including how to integrate the GovInfo MCP into your LLM usage and an example scenario.