Common Elements in your AI assistant
Connect Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor to Common Elements. Query the community association dataset, and operate your own account, from inside the assistant you already use.
Two ways to use it
The same connector does two distinct jobs: it reads the shared community association dataset, and it lets you act on your own Common Elements account. They have different access models and different pricing.
Data tools
Read the community association dataset from any MCP host. Look up and search associations, check risk, scan governing documents, and read statutes. Shares the Developer API tiers and your API key.
Account tools
Operate your own Common Elements account through your assistant: read your orgs, RFPs, messages, and inbox, then act with your sign-off. Gated by OAuth scopes. Free, because it is just you using your own account.
Read the dataset
Available now, all 20 tools. Every field is aggregated from public records and carries its source. Three tools render an interactive widget inline, in hosts that support MCP Apps; every other host still gets the same structured data as text.
Look up an association
Resolve an HOA, condo, or co-op by address, name, or registration number and return the structured record: type, status, county, and standing.
Search and match associations
Search across 399,000+ associations and match free-text or partial details to a single canonical record, so your assistant works against clean identifiers.
Get association risk
Pull FEMA flood risk for a record: share of parcels in a Special Flood Hazard Area, average base flood elevation, and flood zones on file. Renders as an interactive scorecard in hosts that support MCP Apps.
Scan a governing document
Submit declaration, bylaw, or CC and R text and receive a structured compliance read against state statute: a health score, a letter grade, and rule-by-rule findings with citations. Renders as an interactive scorecard in hosts that support MCP Apps.
Search statutes
Full-text search the state statutory reference for community associations and return the matching sections with citations.
Get a statute section
Fetch one statute section by citation, with the canonical text and a stable source reference your assistant can quote.
Find associations near a location
Find associations near a latitude and longitude, sorted by distance. Renders as an interactive map and list in hosts that support MCP Apps.
Board officers and management
Get the board or officer roster on record for an association, and the management company or CAM on record managing it.
Search the vendor directory
Search verified vendors and service providers by category and state, and pull a public profile with published reviews and a records-based trust summary.
Verify a professional license
Search the community-association professional and firm graph from state licensing-board records, and list the associations a manager or firm is on record serving.
Statute and state coverage summaries
Browse statute sections on file for a state, grouped by chapter, and get a state-by-state summary of association and licensed-entity counts.
Operate your own account
Connect your account over OAuth and your assistant acts as you, with row-level security enforcing every permission. Rolling out in phases, read first, then act. See the MCP docs for the current phase.
Read
Read your orgs and context
See who you are signed in as, the organizations you belong to, your roles, and the active org subsequent actions would post as.
Read your RFPs and proposals
List the RFPs your org has posted, the proposals on them, and the proposals your vendor org has submitted, with status.
Read your messages
List your conversations with the last message and unread count, and read the messages in any one thread.
Read your inbox
See your in-app notifications, filter to unread, and mark items read without leaving your assistant.
Act, with your sign-off
Post and reply in the Common Area
Start a thread or reply as your active org, after a preview-and-confirm step so nothing is posted without your sign-off.
Send a message
Send into an existing conversation, confirmation required, so an assistant can draft on your behalf but never sends silently.
Submit a proposal
Submit a proposal you already drafted in the web app to an open RFP. Drafting from scratch stays in-app for now.
OAuth scopes, read and write split
You connect through OAuth and grant scopes per domain. Read and write are separate grants; granting read never implies write. Read-only is the default.
Confirmation before it acts
High-impact actions return a preview and a confirmation token first. Nothing is written until a second, confirmed call, even inside an autonomous loop.
Off limits by design
Account deletion, billing, password and email changes, API-key management, and any admin action are never exposed through MCP.
What it costs
Two access models, two pricing rules. They are independent.
Data access: the Developer API tiers
The data tools share the Developer API plans exactly. The same freemium-to-paid tiers, the same API key, and the same monthly quota. Reading through MCP draws down the same allowance as calling the REST API, so you manage one key and one bill.
Account access: free
Operating your own Common Elements account through MCP is free. It is just you, using the account you already have, through a different client. There is no separate plan and no extra charge. Fair-use rate limits apply to keep automated actions safe, and you connect over OAuth rather than an API key.
Connect in a minute
Connecting Claude to the hosted endpoint runs both data and account tools over OAuth: sign in when prompted, no API key to copy. Claude Desktop, Cursor, and other clients that read local config use the published npm connector with your Developer API key instead.
# Claude: connect the hosted endpoint, sign in when prompted
# https://commonelements.com/api/mcp
# (no API key to copy: your assistant authenticates over OAuth)
# Claude Desktop, Cursor, and other local-config clients: npm connector
npx @common-elements/mcp-server
# Set CE_API_KEY=ce_live_your_key_hereFull setup, tool reference, and scopes live in the MCP integration docs. See what changed most recently in the changelog.
What changed, and when
Updates to the MCP server are posted here going forward, newest first.
Where this changelog starts
This is the first entry. The MCP server has been live for a while; this page did not yet have a changelog to match, so this entry is a snapshot of what is live today rather than a history of past releases. Updates from here forward are posted as new entries above this one.
53 tools are registered on the hosted server. 20 are the public data tools listed above (association lookup, search and matching, risk, compliance scans, board and management lookups, the vendor directory, the professional and licensing graph, statutes, and state summaries), shared with the Developer API tiers. 2 are the ChatGPT-standard search and fetch connector tools. 16 are account-read tools (orgs and active context, relationships and invitations, your profile and notification preferences, notifications, forum threads, RFPs and proposals, conversations). 15 are account-action tools, available once you connect an account over OAuth and grant the matching write scope: posting and replying in the Common Area, sending messages, creating and acting on RFPs and proposals, managing relationships, and updating your own profile and notification preferences. Every account-action tool still enforces RLS under the hood and the high-impact ones require a preview-and-confirm step before anything is written.
Common questions
- What is the Common Elements MCP server?
- It is a Model Context Protocol server that connects an AI assistant such as Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor to Common Elements. It exposes data tools that read the community association dataset and, in phases, account tools that let you operate your own Common Elements account from inside your assistant.
- How much does it cost?
- Data access shares the Developer API plans: the same freemium-to-paid tiers, the same API key, and the same monthly quota. Account access is free, because it is just you using your own Common Elements account through another client rather than the website.
- Which clients does it work with?
- Any MCP-compatible host. Connect Claude to the hosted endpoint and sign in when prompted: no API key to copy, and both data and account tools work. Claude Desktop, Cursor, and similar tools that read local config use the npm connector with a static API key instead. Account tools run with RLS enforcing every permission either way.
- Can an assistant act on my account without my approval?
- No. Account write access is opt-in per OAuth scope, read-only is the default, and high-impact actions require a preview-and-confirm step before anything is written. Destructive actions like account deletion and billing are never exposed through MCP at all.
- What data can it read?
- All 20 data tools are live: association lookup, search, matching, and proximity search, association risk, governing-document compliance scans, board officer and management-company lookups, the vendor directory and reviews, the licensed-professional graph, statute search and individual sections, and state coverage summaries.
- Does it show anything other than text?
- Three data tools also ship an interactive widget: proximity search renders a map and list, the compliance scan renders a scorecard with a grade and findings, and association risk renders a flood-risk scorecard. Hosts that support MCP Apps render the widget inline; every other MCP host still gets the same data as structured text.
Bring Common Elements into your assistant
Generate a key for data access, or connect your account for free. Either way you start in minutes.