About De Gesetze
De Gesetze is an MCP server for searching German federal statutes and ordinances and retrieving their structure, provisions, and amendment status. It serves legal researchers and others who need to locate official federal legislation and inspect a specific section or article.
Key features
- 01Search laws by title or abbreviation
- 02Retrieve amendment and promulgation details
- 03Browse a law's table of contents
- 04Fetch the full text of a section or article
Use cases
- 01Find a statute using its title or abbreviation
- 02Check a law's current amendment status
- 03Read a specific paragraph or article in full
MCP support
Exposes German federal legislation search, structure, metadata, and provision tools to MCP clients through Pipeworx or a local stdio MCP server. The gateway endpoint also lists shared Pipeworx meta-tools.
Configuration
Remote servers need no local install. Pick your client, then copy the config or install in one click.
https://gateway.pipeworx.io/de-gesetze/mcpclaude mcp add --transport http pipeworx-io-de-gesetze https://gateway.pipeworx.io/de-gesetze/mcp{"mcpServers":{"pipeworx-io-de-gesetze":{"type":"http","url":"https://gateway.pipeworx.io/de-gesetze/mcp"}}}Open in Cursor{"servers":{"pipeworx-io-de-gesetze":{"type":"http","url":"https://gateway.pipeworx.io/de-gesetze/mcp"}}}Open in VS Code{"mcpServers":{"pipeworx-io-de-gesetze":{"type":"http","url":"https://gateway.pipeworx.io/de-gesetze/mcp"}}}{"mcpServers":{"pipeworx-io-de-gesetze":{"serverUrl":"https://gateway.pipeworx.io/de-gesetze/mcp"}}}Run commands in a terminal; paste JSON into the client’s MCP config and restart. Servers that need sign-in will prompt on first connect.
Tools
45| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| q | string | No | Alias for question. |
| ask | string | No | Alias for question. |
| text | string | No | Alias for question. |
| input | string | No | Alias for question. |
| packs | array | No | OPTIONAL. Restrict routing to these pack slugs (e.g. ["sec-form-d","sec-13f"]) — the router then picks only from tools in those packs. Omit for the default full-catalog routing. Slugs come from list_packs / search_packs / https://pipeworx.io/directory; unlisted or unknown slugs are ignored and named in _meta.pack_scope.ignored, and if none of them resolves the question is routed across the whole catalog with _meta.pack_scope.full_catalog:true (never an empty answer). |
| query | string | No | Alias for question. |
| prompt | string | No | Alias for question. |
| message | string | No | Alias for question. |
| question | string | Yes | Your question or request in natural language. Accepts query, q, prompt, text, input, ask, message as aliases. |
Details
From the project README@pipeworx/de-gesetze
German federal statutes and ordinances (Bundesrecht) — search by title or official abbreviation, read a single § or Art. in full, browse a law's structure, and get its amendment status ("Stand").
Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1815+ live data sources. This is an independent, unofficial integration — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or published by the upstream provider.
Tools
gesetze_search(query, limit?)— find a law by title keyword or abbreviation ("BGB", "Datenschutz"). An abbreviation match returns that one law directly; otherwise ranks law titles by word overlap.gesetze_law_info(law)— amendment metadata ("Stand") for one law: official abbreviation/title, date of promulgation, official publication citation, the amendment-status entries (Neufassung/Stand), and the entry-into-force date when the source publishes one.gesetze_structure(law, section_id?, depth?, provision_limit?)— the law's table of contents (Buch/Abschnitt/Titel/Kapitel) with its §/Art. provisions listed under each heading. Paged: a branch with more provisions thanprovision_limitreportshas_more_provisionsrather than truncating silently.gesetze_provision(law, provision)— full text of one § (Paragraph) or Art. (Artikel), by abbreviation and number ("823", "§ 823", "823a", "Art 1"), with its title and its own amendment/application footnote when the source attaches one.
Auth
Keyless.
Data sources
- Bundesministerium der Justiz (BMJ) / juris GmbH, Gesetze im Internet — the federal government's official collection of German statutes and ordinances currently in force, each as structured XML with its own amendment metadata.
Notes
- Abbreviation matching. The collection's own table of contents carries
no separate abbreviation field — only a title and a per-law identifier.
For the large majority of entries that identifier IS the law's lowercase
official abbreviation (the publisher's own convention:
bgb-> BGB,stgb-> StGB,estg-> EStG), andgesetze_search/gesetze_law_info/gesetze_structure/gesetze_provisionall resolve on that basis first. This is a documented convention, not a guarantee for every one of the ~6,100 entries — an obscure ordinance's identifier occasionally departs from its cited abbreviation, in which casegesetze_search's title search is the way in. - Per-law fetch is live, per call. Only the catalog (title + law
identifier, ~6,100 entries) is baked into a lookup index; a law's full
text, structure and amendment metadata are fetched and parsed live on
each call to
gesetze_law_info/gesetze_structure/gesetze_provision— proxied, never mirrored. A short per-isolate cache avoids re-fetching the same law repeatedly in a burst of calls; it is not a persistent copy. - § vs. Art. Most laws number their provisions "§ N"; a handful
(constitutional and some international-treaty texts, e.g. the Grundgesetz)
use "Art N" instead.
gesetze_provisionmatches on the bare number/letter token, so either symbol works regardless of which one a given law actually uses — you do not need to know in advance. - Granularity. A provision is one § or Art. (the source's own unit). Absätze (paragraphs) and Sätze (sentences) within a provision are part of its text, not separately addressable — consistent with how the publisher itself structures the document.
- Copyright. German federal legislative and administrative texts are "amtliche Werke" and are not protected by copyright (§ 5 Urheberrechtsgesetz).
- Index refresh.
scripts/bake-de-gesetze-index.mjsregeneratessrc/de-index-data.tsfrom one live call to the publisher's table of contents; it is registered inworkers/gateway/src/pack-baked-indexes.jsonso it ships to KV, never into the gateway bundle.
Quick Start
Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):
{
"mcpServers": {
"de-gesetze": {
"url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/de-gesetze/mcp"
}
}
}
What this endpoint actually serves
tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/de-gesetze/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 1815+ 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/gesetze_search \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{"query":"Datenschutz"}'
No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/gesetze_search. Find one: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs with {"query":"..."}.
Standalone (no gateway account)
This package also runs as a local stdio MCP server — no Pipeworx account, no gateway round-trip:
{
"mcpServers": {
"de-gesetze": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-de-gesetze"]
}
}
}
Or run it directly to confirm it starts:
npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-de-gesetze
It speaks MCP over stdin/stdout and answers initialize/tools/list/tools/call
for only this pack's tools — none of the shared meta-tools the gateway
connection above adds. Same source, same tools, no ask_pipeworx routing.
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 De Gesetze data" })
The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.
More
License
MIT
Comments
New to MCP?
From what the protocol is to installing your first server, these answers cover most first questions.
An open protocol that defines how AI applications connect to external tools and data in a uniform way. Clients talk to the model; MCP servers provide tools, resources and prompt templates. They exchange standard messages, so one server can be reused by many clients.