Michigan Code MCP Server

Michigan Compiled Laws

Michigan Compiled Laws by citation. Keyless. 750.316 is first degree murder.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1856+ live data sources. This is an independent, unofficial integration — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or published by the upstream provider.

See docs/state-law-probe.md for how this source was verified: every state pack confirms a MISS is distinguishable from a HIT before shipping, because several state sites answer HTTP 200 for statutes that do not exist.

What text contains (fleet #3598)

text is the statute: the section's catchline and its body, as the Michigan Legislature publishes the Compiled Laws. It does not include the History line (the public acts that enacted or amended the section, with their effective dates), editor's notes or commentary. Those used to arrive in text when every call was a live read, so a caller that parsed the History line now gets less than it did; nothing was lost from the law itself. Every answer carries a text_scope field saying which it is: the stored copy (served_from: "stored-copy") is statute text only, while the live fallback returns the page text from the section number onward and can still include History and editor's notes. A repealed section is stored with its repeal note as its text.

Stored copy and data_as_of (fleet #3546)

The Legislature's site answers US data centres but refuses or stalls from Singapore: over 7 days external callers saw 3 successes against 98 "down" and 23 "forbidden" from there. A cache cannot help a first touch, so the Michigan Compiled Laws is stored, one JSON object per MCL chapter number (the part of a citation before the dot), in the shared statute store (R2, statutes/mi/) that the Illinois, Indiana, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Wyoming packs also use. The gateway hands the pack its R2 binding and the pack reads only the object a call names (a very large chapter is a small head plus parts, and a call reads the head and one part). A section found there is answered with no upstream request; the response says served_from: "stored-copy" and carries data_as_of (when that chapter was last read from the source). A section the copy cannot answer (chapter missing, object unreadable, or listed with no stored text) falls back to the live read. Absence is never remembered: a chapter published later is served as soon as it exists.

Nothing is loaded at module scope: the data never enters the gateway bundle.

Refresh

node mcps/michigan-code/scripts/bake-chapters.mjs            # all chapters -> mcps/michigan-code/.bake/
node mcps/michigan-code/scripts/bake-chapters.mjs --only X   # one chapter
node mcps/michigan-code/scripts/bake-chapters.mjs --resume   # keep source pages already fetched
node mcps/michigan-code/scripts/upload-chapters.mjs          # publish to R2 (statutes/mi/), changed files only

The source is the Legislature's published text of the Compiled Laws, one file per chapter, read under its own policy for automated collection (one request per second at most; this refresh makes one request per chapter file, two seconds apart). Repealed sections are stored with their repeal note. Sequential, with a delay between requests, an honest user agent, bounded retries, and a stop on the first 429/403/451. Exit 0 only if every chapter was fetched and parsed and the totals clear the floors (default 200 chapters, 15,000 sections with text); anything less exits 1 with the counts. A chapter whose text is unchanged keeps its previous data_as_of. The baked files are a working copy, not committed (.bake/ is gitignored); upload-chapters.mjs writes only the files whose content hash differs from the one recorded in statutes/mi/_manifest.json, so a refresh that finds nothing new writes nothing. It uses wrangler r2 object put --remote under the operator login; no API token.

Data source

Michigan Legislature, Michigan Compiled Laws. Michigan statutes are public record.

Freshness of the live fallback

On the live path a section is read once a day at most. When the legislature site cannot be reached, an earlier copy of the same section answers and the response says so (served_from: "stale-cache", stale: true, data_as_of). A section with no earlier copy fails with an error that names a firewall block as one.

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "michigan-code": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/michigan-code/mcp"
    }
  }
}

What this endpoint actually serves

tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/michigan-code/mcp returns the tools in the table above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx, discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and is the authoritative answer for a given day.

This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth, connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.

Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipeworx": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1856+ data sources. The only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx reaches all of them from either one.

No MCP client? Call it over HTTP

curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/mi_compiled_law \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"section":"750.316"}'

No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/mi_compiled_law. Find one: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs with {"query":"..."}.

Run it from npm

@pipeworx/mcp-michigan-code is a local stdio bridge to the Pipeworx gateway: your MCP client starts it with npx, and it forwards every call to the same https://gateway.pipeworx.io/michigan-code/mcp endpoint shown above. It needs network access; there is no offline mode.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "michigan-code": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-michigan-code"]
    }
  }
}

Without a key it calls anonymously, capped at 50 calls a day. A free account raises that to 200 a day: get a key at https://pipeworx.io/signup and add "env": { "PIPEWORX_API_KEY": "<your key>" } to the server entry. The key is sent as a Bearer token, the same way a hosted connection sends it, so calls are metered and billed exactly as they are there.

It lists only this pack's tools by default. Set PIPEWORX_META_TOOLS=1 to also list ask_pipeworx and the other gateway-wide tools.

Behind an HTTPS proxy: Node's built-in fetch does not read HTTPS_PROXY by default. Newer Node releases honour it when NODE_USE_ENV_PROXY=1 is set; check your Node version's documentation.

Using with ask_pipeworx

Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:

ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about Michigan Code data" })

The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.

More

• Docs and guides
• pipeworx.io

License

MIT