MCP Quickstart
Give your AI assistant direct access to the U.S. Code, Code of Federal Regulations, and Federal Register through the Model Context Protocol.
Prerequisites
- Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, VS Code, Zed, or another MCP-compatible client
- Node.js 22 or later
1. Configure Your Client
Open your Claude Desktop config file:
- macOS:
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json - Windows:
%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
Add the LexBuild server:
{
"mcpServers": {
"lexbuild": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@lexbuild/mcp"]
}
}
}
Save and restart Claude Desktop.
2. Try It Out
Ask Claude something that requires legal knowledge:
“What does 5 USC 552 say about public access to government records?”
Claude will use the search_laws tool to find the section, then get_section to retrieve the full text of the Freedom of Information Act.
3. Explore Further
Try these example queries:
- Search: “Find CFR regulations about securities fraud”
- Browse: “List all titles in the U.S. Code”
- Retrieve: “Show me Federal Register document 2026-06029”
- Cite: “Generate a Bluebook citation for 17 CFR 240.10b-5”
- Summarize: “Summarize 42 USC 1983 for a general audience”
What’s Happening
When you ask a legal question, your AI assistant:
- Calls
search_lawsto find relevant sections across all three sources - Calls
get_sectionto fetch the full text of matching sections - Reads the Markdown content and metadata to answer your question
All data comes from the LexBuild Data API. No local database is needed.
Next Steps
- MCP Installation — Setup for Claude Code, Cursor, and API key configuration
- MCP Tools — Full reference for all five tools
- API Quickstart — Access the same data via REST API