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. Every field is aggregated from public records and carries its source. Your assistant calls these tools the same way it calls any other MCP tool.
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 256,000+ associations and match free-text or partial details to a single canonical record, so your assistant works against clean identifiers.
Get association risk
Pull layered risk signals on a record: FEMA flood zone, reserve-study health, and structural-integrity flags where state data exists.
Scan a governing document
Submit declaration, bylaw, or CC and R text and receive a structured compliance read against state statute and best-practice governance rules.
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.
Expanding next
More of the directory is coming to the same read-only path, on the same key.
- Vendors and directory
- Board officers and rosters
- Management-company graph
- County and state summaries
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
Data access runs through the published npm connector with your Developer API key. Account access connects over OAuth at the hosted endpoint, so the assistant acts as you.
# Data access (npm connector, set your Developer API key)
npx @common-elements/mcp-server
# Set CE_API_KEY=ce_live_your_key_here
# Account access uses the hosted endpoint over OAuth
# https://commonelements.com/api/mcpFull setup, tool reference, and scopes live in the MCP integration docs.
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. The npm connector works with Claude Desktop, Cursor, and similar tools that read a static API key. Account access runs over the hosted OAuth endpoint so the assistant acts as you, with RLS enforcing every permission.
- 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?
- Today: association lookup, search, and matching, association risk, governing-document compliance scans, statute search, and individual statute sections. Vendors, board officers, the management-company graph, and county and state summaries are expanding next.
Bring Common Elements into your assistant
Generate a key for data access, or connect your account for free. Either way you start in minutes.