TownBrief MCP Server

Structured access to Massachusetts local government intelligence for AI assistants.

351 towns and cities. 14 counties. Meeting articles, transcripts, news roundups, bylaws, calendars, and 10+ years of historical archives — all from an automated journalism pipeline powered by The Wayland Post.

Quick Start

Claude Desktop / Claude Code

Add to your MCP config (claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "townbrief": {
      "url": "https://api.townbrief.com/sse",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor / Windsurf / any MCP client

Endpoint: https://api.townbrief.com/sse
Transport: SSE
Auth: Bearer token

ChatGPT

Use the TownBrief GPT — no setup required, OAuth handles auth.

Get an API Key

Go to api.townbrief.com/authorize
Enter your email
Your key is returned via the OAuth flow

Free tier includes discovery tools (list meetings, search, browse counties). Full content access (articles, transcripts, bylaws, archives) requires a paid subscription.

Tools (22)

Free Tier — Discovery & Browse

Tool	Description
`list_recent_meetings`	Newest meetings across all committees for a town
`search_meetings`	Full-text search over article text
`list_counties`	All 14 MA counties with their towns
`list_county_meetings`	Recent meetings across a county
`search_county_meetings`	Search across all towns in a county
`list_recent_roundups`	Recent daily news roundup dates
`list_bylaw_towns`	Towns with bylaws indexed
`list_bylaw_chapters`	Table of contents for a town's bylaws

Paid Tier — Full Content

Tool	Description
`get_article`	AI-generated article + brief for a meeting
`get_transcript`	Full Whisper-generated meeting transcript
`get_roundup`	Daily news roundup (article + sources)
`get_committee_summary`	Multi-meeting overview for a committee
`get_town_calendar`	Upcoming town/arts/library events
`search_bylaws`	Full-text search of town bylaws
`get_bylaw_chapter`	Full chapter text
`search_waylandarchive`	6,000+ historical town documents (1985–present)
`get_archive_page`	Full text of an archive document
`search_wells`	Wayland private-well PFAS monitoring hub
`search_waylandpost`	1,000+ published Wayland Post articles
`get_waylandpost_post`	Full text of a Wayland Post story
`search_waylandenews`	5,500+ historical eNews posts (2013–2024)
`search_wvn`	Wayland Voters Network archive

Parameters

`meeting_id` format

{Committee}/{YYYY-MM-DD}

Example: Select Board/2026-06-29

`town` parameter

Lowercase slug: wayland, sudbury, cambridge, somerville, etc.

`get_article` — `fields` parameter

Comma-separated: article, article_plus, brief, headlines, review. Default: article,brief. Use all for everything.

`get_transcript` — `max_chars` parameter

Truncate transcript to N characters. Default: 20000 (~5000 words). Pass 0 for full text.

Pricing

Free tier: Discovery tools (list, search, browse) — unlimited
Paid tier: $8/month or $80/year — full content access
Usage billing: $0.02 per content API call (metered via Stripe, billed monthly)

Subscribe at wayland.ma.townbrief.com

Coverage

All 351 Massachusetts municipalities across all 14 counties:

Select Boards, Finance Committees, Planning Boards, Conservation Commissions, School Committees, ZBAs, and dozens of other boards
AI-generated articles and deep-read analyses from Whisper transcripts
Daily news roundups aggregating press releases, school news, public safety
Town bylaws (full-text search and chapter retrieval)
Town, arts, and library event calendars
County-level aggregation

REST API

OpenAPI spec: api.townbrief.com/actions/openapi.json

All tools are also available as REST endpoints at https://api.townbrief.com/api/{tool_name} with query parameters.

About

Built by The Wayland Post — an independent, AI-assisted local news organization covering Wayland, MA and expanding statewide.

The pipeline downloads government meeting videos, transcribes them locally with Whisper on GPU, generates AP-style articles via Claude, fetches agenda/packet/minutes PDFs, and produces daily news roundups — all automated, all available through this API.

License

API access is a paid service. The content is copyrighted by The Wayland Post. See Terms of Service.

TownBrief - Massachusetts Local Government Intelligence