Bring government and civic data directly into your Claude conversations
Use the Civic IQ connector for Claude to bring government and civic data directly into your Claude conversations. Ask a question in plain English and Claude searches city council and school board meeting minutes, open bids and RFPs, approved contracts, and agency purchase records across cities, counties, school districts, community colleges, towns and special districts nationwide. With the connector, you can:
Example use cases:
Business Development teams:
Ask for all infrastructure projects in California from the last three months sorted by project value.
Ask which county boards approved technology or software purchases this quarter.
Ask to find vendors awarded contracts related to renewable energy in Texas.
Ask which vendors government pays most for construction in Texas.
Ask for every city and school district within 50 miles of an existing customer agency.
Sales & Market Research:
Ask for a summary of open contracts and bids related to IT services in the Pacific Northwest.
Ask to search for a vendor named "Acme Corp" across signals, spend data, and contracts.
Ask for open RFPs at higher education agencies in Florida.
Government Relations & Policy:
Ask for all government contacts at the City of Austin with a title containing "Director".
Ask what opportunities and pre-bid signals your digest workspace surfaced this week.
Ask what the city council in a given town approved at its last meeting.
Before working with the connector, review the following requirements and considerations.
The tools Claude can see are decided by your Civic IQ plan, not by how you connect. Signing in and using an API key expose the same set.
Ask Claude "what does my Civic IQ plan include?" at any point and account_details will answer for your own account.
| Tool | Description | Plans |
|---|---|---|
search_signals | Search civic signals and government meeting records by keyword. Best match first by default, or newest meeting first on request. days_back sets the window (90 days by default) | All plans |
find_vendors | Search vendor records by purchase description | Paid plans |
rank_vendors_by_spend | Rank the vendors government pays most in an area of spending, by total purchase spend | Paid plans |
search_vendor | Search a vendor by name across signals, spend, and contracts, with fuzzy name matching | Paid plans |
discover_contracts | Discover public procurement contracts by keyword | Paid plans |
search_rfps | Search active and past RFPs by agency, keyword, state, agency type, or status | All plans |
get_contacts | Get agency staff contact information, filterable by state and job title | All plans |
find_nearby_agencies | Find agencies within a radius (1–500 miles) of a zip code or a named agency, nearest first | Paid plans |
list_digest_workspaces | List the digest workspaces you can read, with their keywords, filters, and last digest date | Paid plans |
get_workspace_signals | Read AI-scored signals from a digest workspace, including historical digests | Paid plans |
launch_sequence | Enroll a contact in a 3-step outreach email sequence. This one sends email on your behalf; everything else only reads | Paid plans |
account_details | Report what your plan includes: the tools you can call, row caps, and any fields withheld | All plans |
The Free plan covers three tools, with smaller result sets and some fields held back:
| Tool | Rows returned | Fields not included |
|---|---|---|
search_rfps | up to 10 | source and related document links, contact phone |
search_signals | up to 3 | source PDF link |
get_contacts | up to 3 | email, phone |
Claude is told about these caps up front, so it will say when an answer is shortened rather than filling the gap itself. To lift them, contact Civic IQ.
Result limits on paid plans. Most tools return 10 results by default and up to 100. find_vendors and discover_contracts default to 25, and find_nearby_agencies and get_workspace_signals default to 20. You can request more by saying so in your prompt, for example "show me up to 50 results".
There are two ways to connect. Signing in is the right choice for most people.
The API key is there for scripted or shared setups where nobody is present to
click through a sign-in screen. Both give you the same tools; what you can see
follows your Civic IQ plan either way.
Works with any Civic IQ sign-in method: email and password, Google, or an
email sign-in link. Nothing to copy, and access follows your account.
https://mcp.civiciq.com/mcp
No sign-in screen, so this suits headless and shared setups. The key carries
your access, so treat it like a password.
https://mcp.civiciq.com/mcp/ak_live_your_key_here
Note: a URL containing a key can be recorded in browser history and proxy
logs. Prefer Option 1 for everyday use, and revoke a key from
Settings → Developer → API Keys if it is ever exposed.
For the best results:
Example prompts:
Search for infrastructure and transportation projects in Texas with a value over $1 million.
Find vendors related to IT services and software in the state of Florida.
Show me open RFPs and bids for consulting at city and county agencies in Texas.
Which school boards in Ohio approved new software in the last three months?
Get me contacts at the City of Denver with the title "Procurement Manager".
List all school districts within 40 miles of zip code 78701.
Which vendors does government pay most for construction in Arizona?
What does my Civic IQ plan include?
What opportunity signals did my digest workspace surface in the last 7 days?
Claude will retrieve data from Civic IQ and return a structured response. For large result sets, Claude may summarize results or ask for clarification to narrow the search.
When enabled, the connector gives Claude access to:
No. Claude cannot update or delete any records in your Civic IQ account. Every search and retrieval tool is read-only.
One tool does more than read. launch_sequence enrolls a contact in an outreach email sequence, which sends email on your behalf from a connected sender address. It is available on paid plans, however you connect, and it does not change existing records. It is not on the Free plan.
The connector works with the languages Claude supports. Prompts and responses follow Claude's multilingual capabilities. Source data from Civic IQ is primarily in English. Refer to Anthropic's documentation for the full list of supported languages.
On paid plans most tools return up to 10 results by default and a maximum of 100. Vendor and contract searches default to 25, and agency and workspace-signal searches default to 20. You can request more by specifying a count in your prompt (e.g., "Show me up to 50 results"). For very large queries, Claude may automatically paginate or summarize results.
The Free plan caps results at 10 rows for RFP searches and 3 rows for signals and contacts. Ask Claude what your plan includes to see the current limits on your own account.
Your plan defines which states you can query. If your plan is limited to specific states, requesting another state returns an error naming your covered states rather than returning partial data. Contact your Civic IQ account team to expand coverage.
Claude can make mistakes. To reduce inaccuracies:
If you experience persistent hallucinations or unhelpful outputs, contact Civic IQ support at [email protected].
Data retrieved by the connector is available within your active Claude conversation session. Anthropic's standard data retention policies apply to conversation history. Refer to Anthropic's Terms of Service for details on data retention.
Anthropic does not use data shared through third-party connectors to train its models, except in specific opt-in scenarios. Refer to your Anthropic plan terms (consumer or commercial) for full details.
Yes. The connector operates within the data access permissions defined in your Civic IQ account, including your plan's state coverage and your access level on shared digest workspaces. You will only be able to retrieve data that your account is authorized to access.
For Civic IQ connector issues, contact [email protected] and include a description of the issue, your Claude account details, and any error messages displayed.