How to Use the U.S. Congress MCP in Windsurf

Q: Can Windsurf help me track nominations from U.S. Congress?

Yes, it lists executive and judicial nominations using listcongressnominations. If you need to cross-reference those names with committee assignments or membership records, the MCP Server helps link them all together.

Automate complex legislative research tasks directly within Windsurf.

See Vinkius in Action

Works with every AI agent you already use

…and any MCP-compatible client

MCP Servers - Free for Subscribers

Connect U.S. Congress MCP to Windsurf

Create your Vinkius account to connect U.S. Congress to Windsurf and route execution through our secure gateway. The platform manages server hosting, runtime updates, and security layers. Configuration requires no manual server provisioning.

GDPR Free for Subscribers

Setup U.S. Congress with Windsurf

Ask AI about this MCP

ChatGPT

Claude

Perplexity

Researching Congressional History with Windsurf

Cascade finds full details for any bill using the `get_bill_details` tool. This lets you pull everything—sponsors, status, and text—without having to manually run multiple commands. You can also look at historical data by querying congressional sessions via `list_congress_sessions`. Windsurf figures out if a specific year is active or if it needs to check the start/end dates for a given Congress.

Identifying Key Congressional Players

Need to know who's involved? Use `list_congress_members` to pull records on current and past members of the U.S. Congress. You can also check executive or judicial appointments by calling `list_congress_nominations`. If you need a full picture of institutional power, Cascade handles it. It lets you list both congressional committees using `list_congress_committees` and major treaties via `list_congress_treaties`.

Tracking Legislative Changes

Understanding how bills change is tough work. The tool `list_congress_amendments` pulls all the amendments attached to a bill, so you see exactly what was altered and when. This saves hours of digging into archived records. Want to know which general laws are active? Just run `list_congress_bills`. It queries the gov database for bills from either the current or a specific Congress.

Setup guide

Set up U.S. Congress MCP in Windsurf

Prerequisites

Windsurf IDE installed (macOS, Windows, or Linux)
Active Vinkius subscription with a valid endpoint token

1

Open MCP configuration

Click the Cascade assistant icon in the sidebar, then click the hammer icon (🔨) at the top of the panel. Select "Configure" to open ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json.
2

Add the U.S. Congress MCP

Paste the JSON snippet shown on the right into the mcpServers object. Replace [YOUR_TOKEN_HERE] with your endpoint token from cloud.vinkius.com.
3

Refresh MCPs

Go back to the hammer icon (🔨) in Cascade and click "Refresh". Windsurf will detect the new server. No full restart is needed — the connection is hot-reloaded.
4

Verify in Cascade

Start a new Cascade conversation and ask something like "Show my U.S. Congress payment history." If connected, Cascade will call the U.S. Congress tools directly. You will see a green dot next to the server name in the MCP panel.

mcp_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "us-congress-mcp": {
      "url": "https://edge.vinkius.com/[YOUR_TOKEN_HERE]/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Get your connection token →

Independent Platform Disclaimer: Vinkius is an independent platform and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, verified by, or otherwise authorized by Congress.gov. All third-party trademarks, logos, and brand names are the property of their respective owners. Their use on this website is strictly for informational purposes to identify service compatibility and interoperability.

Why Choose Vinkius

Vinkius connects your tools to AI with real-time monitoring and automatic cost savings — all from one dashboard.

Connect U.S. Congress now

Real-time monitoring

Live

visibility into every interaction

Connect your favorite tools to your AI and see exactly what's happening — every request, every response, in real time.

Built-in savings

60%

lower AI costs

Vinkius compresses data between your apps and your AI automatically. Lower bills every month — no configuration required.

Single dashboard

One

place for every integration

Every tool your AI connects to, managed from a single screen. One account, complete control.

Common questions about U.S. Congress MCP in Windsurf

You just set your goal in Windsurf, and Cascade handles the rest. It knows which tools to chain together—like getting bill details and listing amendments—to give you a complete answer without any manual prompting.

Absolutely. You can list records across multiple congressional sessions using `list_congress_sessions`. This means you aren't limited to the current political cycle; your agent handles years and dates for deep dives.

Yes, it lists executive and judicial nominations using `list_congress_nominations`. If you need to cross-reference those names with committee assignments or membership records, the MCP Server helps link them all together.

The server processes public legislative records, covering bills, members, and treaties. All data handled is derived from publicly available congressional archives.

This MCP Server covers a wide range of U.S. Congress data: legislative bills, amendments, members' names, committees, and treaties. It’s basically your one-stop shop for congressional records.

Use it with your favorite AI tools

Connect this server to Cursor, Claude, VS Code, and more.

OpenAI Agents SDK sdk-python

Google ADK sdk-python

Pydantic AI sdk-python

Vercel AI SDK sdk-typescript