Civic Tech Field Guide
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Build With Us

The largest civic tech dataset, open for builders

Thousands of curated projects using tech for the common good — queryable by an MCP server, a REST API, and open code. Plug the Field Guide into your agents, research, and products.

Get the MCP serverExplore the API

Three ways in

Pick the entry point that matches how you build.

Query it

MCP Server

Connect Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client to live, curated civic-tech data in one config block.

Open setup Pull it

REST API

Fetch and filter listings, categories, and facets as clean JSON. No key for public reads.

See endpoints See it

Showcase

Explore products, bots, and research already built on the directory — then make your own.

Browse builds
Model Context Protocol

Give your agent the whole Guide

Drop the CTFG MCP server into Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client and your assistant can search listings, pull project detail, and traverse categories — grounded in real, curated data.

Semantic + faceted searchQuery by keyword, category, country, project type, or status.
Structured project recordsFull listing detail with links, tags, funding, and impact evidence.
Always currentReads the live directory — no stale snapshots to maintain.
"Find active govtech projects in Kenya""Open-source participatory budgeting tools""Who works on election integrity?"

Full MCP integration docs

Hosted endpoint (no key): https://civictech.guide/mcp. A native @civictechguide/mcp package is coming soon.

claude_desktop_config.json
"mcpServers": {
  "civictech-guide": {
    "command": "npx",
    "args": [
      "-y", "mcp-remote",
      "https://civictech.guide/mcp"
    ]
  }
}

REST API

Clean JSON over HTTPS. Public read endpoints, no key required for basic search.

GET/api/v1/projects/searchSearch & filter listings
GET/api/v1/projects/:slugSingle project detail
GET/api/v1/projects/exportBulk export (paginated)
GET/api/v1/categoriesCategory index + counts
GET/api/v1/facetsFilter option values
terminal
# Search active projects — no key required
curl "https://civictech.guide/api/v1/projects/search?q=participatory+budgeting&limit=5"

Built with the Guide

Tools, research, and bots already running on the directory’s data.

Reference app

CTFG Directory

Search and explore thousands of curated civic-tech projects — our own flagship app, built on the dataset.

Mashup

CTFG PilotCity Mashup

Blends the Field Guide dataset with PilotCity to connect civic tech with project-based learning.

Recommendation engine

CTFG Taxonomy Recommender

Suggests the right Field Guide categories and tags for any project, powered by the directory's taxonomy.

Code & examples

Open-source starters and dumps — being packaged for release (coming soon).

@civictechguide/mcp Soon

One-line native MCP server (npx). Until it ships, connect to the hosted MCP endpoint below via mcp-remote.

JavaScript

api-examples Soon

Copy-paste fetch snippets in curl, Python, and JS.

Python

data Soon

Export scripts and JSON dumps of the full directory under CC BY.

JSON

notebooks Soon

Jupyter notebooks for analysing the dataset.

Jupyter

Free to build on — CC BY 4.0

The Field Guide data is free to use, re-use, adapt, and modify for any purpose, including commercially, as long as you link back with attribution.

Read the terms