About Nl Wetten
Nl Wetten provides access to consolidated Dutch national legislation, for legal researchers and others checking statutes across time. It searches law titles and retrieves dated law structures or original article text, rather than offering full-text search.
Key features
- 01Search legislation by title
- 02Resolve laws for a given date
- 03Browse chapters and article numbers
- 04Read original Dutch article text
- 05Retrieve past article versions
Use cases
- 01Find a regulation by title
- 02Check a law's structure on a date
- 03Read an article as originally published
- 04Compare article text across dates
MCP support
An MCP server exposing tools to search Dutch legislation and retrieve laws or article text by date. It runs through Pipeworx or as a standalone local stdio server.
Configuration
Remote servers need no local install. Pick your client, then copy the config or install in one click.
https://gateway.pipeworx.io/nl-wetten/mcpclaude mcp add --transport http pipeworx-io-nl-wetten https://gateway.pipeworx.io/nl-wetten/mcp{"mcpServers":{"pipeworx-io-nl-wetten":{"type":"http","url":"https://gateway.pipeworx.io/nl-wetten/mcp"}}}Open in Cursor{"servers":{"pipeworx-io-nl-wetten":{"type":"http","url":"https://gateway.pipeworx.io/nl-wetten/mcp"}}}Open in VS Code{"mcpServers":{"pipeworx-io-nl-wetten":{"type":"http","url":"https://gateway.pipeworx.io/nl-wetten/mcp"}}}{"mcpServers":{"pipeworx-io-nl-wetten":{"serverUrl":"https://gateway.pipeworx.io/nl-wetten/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
44| 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/nl-wetten
Dutch national legislation, consolidated and point-in-time: search by title, look up a regulation's structure by its BWB id, and read one article's original Dutch text as it stood on any date.
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
nl_wetten_search(query, as_of?, limit?)— title search over Dutch national legislation; returns the regulation(s) matching, each resolved to the version in force onas_of(default today), with its BWB id (BWBR...). Title search only, not full-text search.nl_wetten_get_law(bwb_id, as_of?, offset?, limit?)— one regulation's citeertitel, authority, legal domain(s), the resolved version's own validity period, its chapter structure, and a paged list of article numbers (never truncated silently —has_more/next_offset).nl_wetten_get_article(bwb_id, article, as_of?)— one article's original Dutch text, broken into its numbered "lid" (paragraph) subdivisions, plus the date that exact text took effect and the resolved version's validity period. Pass an earlieras_ofto read a past version of the same article.
Every date returned is a separate field: as_of (what you asked for),
toestand_valid_from / toestand_valid_until (how long the resolved
consolidated version has applied), and — on nl_wetten_get_article —
article_in_force_since (when that article's own text last changed), which
can differ from the toestand's own start date when the article itself hasn't
been amended since an earlier date.
Auth
Keyless.
Data sources
- KOOP (the Dutch government's publications agency), Basiswettenbestand (BWB) — the consolidated register of Dutch national legislation, covering every statute, AMvB, ministerial regulation and treaty KOOP publishes.
Notes
- The upstream 406s without an explicit
Accept: application/xmlheader. No Accept header at all (what a barefetch()sends) andAccept: application/jsonboth get HTTP 406, even for an otherwise well-formed, healthy query. Every request this pack makes sets the header. - A title search without a validity-date filter returns one record per historical version, not per law — "Algemene wet bestuursrecht" alone comes back 40+ times across its amendment history. Every search here adds the as-of date so each regulation resolves to exactly one version.
- Article full text has no JSON form. The consolidated text is only published as XML, and a single law's document can run several MB (the Algemene wet bestuursrecht's current version is ~2.6 MB). There's no XML parser in the Workers runtime, so article text is extracted with targeted pattern matching over the register's fixed element structure — correct for real statute text, not a general-purpose XML parser.
- Article numbers follow the source's own numbering, which is not always
plain integers — e.g. "1:3" (chapter:article) or "3:9a" (a lettered
insertion). Use the exact string
nl_wetten_get_lawlists.
Quick Start
Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):
{
"mcpServers": {
"nl-wetten": {
"url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/nl-wetten/mcp"
}
}
}
What this endpoint actually serves
tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/nl-wetten/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/nl_wetten_search \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{"query":"Algemene wet bestuursrecht"}'
No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/nl_wetten_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": {
"nl-wetten": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-nl-wetten"]
}
}
}
Or run it directly to confirm it starts:
npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-nl-wetten
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 Nl Wetten data" })
The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.
More
License
MIT
Comments
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