Austrian Law (RIS) — Bundesrecht, Landesrecht & Judikatur

at-ris-mcp

A generic MCP server and standalone Python client library for the Austrian RIS (Rechtsinformationssystem des Bundes), the official legal information system of the Republic of Austria, operated by the Bundeskanzleramt.

It covers federal law (Bundesrecht — including consolidated law BrKons, the official gazettes, drafts and government bills), state law (Landesrecht of the nine Bundesländer), case law (Judikatur — OGH, VfGH, VwGH, BVwG, LVwG and more), ministerial decrees, district and municipal law, plus a change-monitoring feed — via the keyless OGD API at https://data.bka.gv.at/ris/api/v2.6/.

Why this exists

Compared with existing RIS tooling, at-ris-mcp adds:

• Consolidated law (BrKons) — the currently applicable text, not just the gazette novellas.
• Section-precise access — retrieve a single §/Artikel/Anlage (Abschnitt.*).
• Historical version — the law as it stood on a given date (Fassung.FassungVom).
• Clean Markdown — RIS HTML (≈40 KB of CSS boilerplate per document) is stripped to the legal text, with a raw switch for the untouched original.

Two packages, one repo

• ris_client — a standalone, MCP-independent library. Import it directly.
• ris_mcp — a thin FastMCP/stdio wrapper exposing 10 tools. Contains no logic of its own.

Install

pip install at-ris-mcp          # library only
pip install "at-ris-mcp[mcp]"   # + the MCP server (FastMCP)

Run the MCP server (stdio)

at-ris-mcp
# or
python -m ris_mcp

Remote transport (HTTP / SSE)

For hosted or remote deployments the server can also speak streamable HTTP or SSE instead of stdio:

at-ris-mcp --transport http --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000   # streamable HTTP
at-ris-mcp --transport sse  --port 9000                  # SSE
# or via environment:
RIS_MCP_TRANSPORT=http RIS_MCP_PORT=8000 at-ris-mcp

The HTTP endpoint is served at /mcp by default (override with --path / RIS_MCP_PATH). stdio remains the default when no transport is given.

Tools

Tool	Purpose
ris_search_law	Search Bundesrecht (default BrKons; also BgblAuth, Begut, RegV, …). Section + Fassung filters.
ris_get_law_text	Full text of a statute/section (markdown | html | xml | raw).
ris_search_case	Search Judikatur (default Justiz; all courts). Filter by applied norm.
ris_get_case_text	Full text of a decision.
ris_search_state_law	Search Landesrecht (9 Bundesländer; default LrKons). Select states via bundeslaender.
ris_search_misc	Search Sonstige (ministerial decrees Erlaesse, Avsv, …).
ris_search_district	Search district authority notices (Bezirke / Bvb).
ris_search_municipality	Search municipal law (Gemeinden / Gemeinderecht Gr/GrA).
ris_list_collections	Which endpoints/applications are covered.
ris_list_changes	Change/early-warning feed (RIS History) via the OGD SOAP endpoint, incl. deleted documents.

Library usage

import asyncio
from ris_client import RisClient, LawSearchRequest, TextFormat

async def main():
    async with RisClient() as c:
        res = await c.search_law(LawSearchRequest(suchworte="Datenschutzgesetz",
                                                  page_size="Ten"))
        hit = res.items[0]
        print(hit.human_readable_citation, hit.eli_uri)
        text = await c.get_text(hit.content_urls["html"], TextFormat.markdown)
        print(text.content[:500])

asyncio.run(main())

Configuration (environment variables)

Variable	Default	Meaning
RIS_BASE_URL	https://data.bka.gv.at/ris/api/v2.6	API base (version isolation).
RIS_SOAP_URL	https://data.bka.gv.at/ris/ogd/v2.6/	OGD SOAP endpoint (used by ris_list_changes).
RIS_USER_AGENT	at-ris-mcp/<version> (+…)	Descriptive UA (netiquette).
RIS_RATE_MS	1200	Minimum delay between requests (ms).
RIS_TIMEOUT_S	30	HTTP timeout.
RIS_MAX_RETRIES	3	Retries on 429/5xx (incl. 503).
RIS_CACHE_DIR	~/.cache/at-ris-mcp	SQLite cache location.
RIS_CACHE_ENABLED	true	Toggle the cache.
RIS_AUDIT_DIR	(unset)	If set, append a JSONL audit line per call (no full text, no client data).
RIS_MCP_TRANSPORT	stdio	Server transport: stdio | http | sse | streamable-http.
RIS_MCP_HOST	127.0.0.1	Bind host for http/sse.
RIS_MCP_PORT	8000	Bind port for http/sse.
RIS_MCP_PATH	(transport default)	URL path for the HTTP endpoint.

Netiquette & rate limiting

Per the RIS OGD FAQ: a 1–2 s pause per page is enforced by the client; bulk access should occur outside office hours (18:00–06:00) or on weekends and be announced to [email protected]. A descriptive User-Agent is sent by default.

Licensing

• Code: Apache-2.0 (see LICENSE).

• Data: the retrieved documents are provided by the Republic of Austria under CC BY 4.0. Every tool response carries an attribution field:

  Quelle: RIS – Rechtsinformationssystem des Bundes (data.bka.gv.at), CC BY 4.0

• No legal advice. Only the authentic promulgation text (Bundesgesetzblatt/Landesgesetzblatt authentisch) is legally binding. Consolidated law and all other documents are for information only. Every response carries a legal_notice to that effect.

Scope (v1.0)

Covered: Bundesrecht (BrKons, BgblAuth, BgblPdf, BgblAlt, Begut, RegV, Erv — English translations), Judikatur (all courts), the History change-feed (ris_list_changes, incl. deleted documents), Landesrecht (9 Bundesländer: LrKons, LgblAuth, Lgbl, LgblNO, Vbl), Sonstige (Erlaesse, Avsv, Avn, Spg, KmGer, Upts, Mrp, PruefGewO — with app-specific fine filters), Bezirke (Bvb) and Gemeinden (Gr, GrA).

English translations (Erv): search via ris_search_law with applikation="Erv". suchworte/titel map to the RIS SearchTerms/Title parameters automatically.

State-law note: for consolidated state law (LrKons), select the states via bundeslaender (e.g. ["Kaernten","Tirol"]); this maps to the dotted Bundesland.SucheIn<Land>=true flags the API requires (the flat form is silently ignored for LrKons).

History note: consolidated federal law is monitored under the application name Bundesnormen (not BrKons), consolidated state law under Landesnormen. The History query uses the OGD SOAP endpoint, since it is not exposed via the REST GET API.

Development

pip install -e ".[dev,mcp]"
pytest                       # offline tests
RIS_SMOKE=1 pytest -m smoke  # live smoke tests against the real API

Release

Releases are automated. Pushing a version tag (vX.Y.Z) triggers GitHub Actions to build the distributions, publish to PyPI (via Trusted Publishing / OIDC — no API token), create a GitHub Release, and register the new version in the MCP Registry.

# bump the version in pyproject.toml, src/ris_client/config.py and server.json,
# update CHANGELOG.md, then:
git tag -a vX.Y.Z -m "vX.Y.Z"
git push origin vX.Y.Z

To build locally without publishing:

python -m build              # sdist + wheel into dist/
python -m twine check dist/*

The MCP-registry entry is described by server.json (name io.github.paragraflabs/at-ris-mcp); the matching mcp-name: marker is embedded near the top of this README.

Contributing & support

Issues and pull requests are welcome at https://github.com/paragraflabs/at-ris-mcp. See CHANGELOG.md for the release history. This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Republic of Austria or the Bundeskanzleramt; it is an independent client for the public RIS OGD interface.