MCP server for public tenders: connect Claude, ChatGPT and your development tools

Find tenders that fit your sector, directly from your assistant. Scoutee brings official sources into one search; refine it with keywords, budget and optional CPV filters for EU procurement.

Daily email alerts

Create an account and save your search on Scoutee. Its daily email alert is enabled automatically when criteria are set and an alert slot is available; you can turn it off. Your free account includes 1 active search alert(s) across your workspaces, only when new tenders match, with up to 20 results per search. The email previews 3 tenders; opening the search keeps the free allowance of 20 searches per hour and 1 page(s) of 20 results. Paid plans support alerts for multiple searches.

If you ask your assistant to notify you by email, it can guide you to registration and your saved search on Scoutee. Subscription management requires your Scoutee session; the current MCP tools and OAuth REST tender endpoints cannot create subscriptions or schedule email. GET /api/public/plans publishes the per-plan email_alerts allowance, alongside search quotas.

Without an account: tender search (including custom keywords and filters) and CPV discovery share 2 query per rolling hour per IP (IPv6 /64). Changing tools or MCP sessions does not reset it. Read quota.remaining and quota.resets_at; when the allowance reaches zero, create a free account to continue now, or wait until reset. Reading published tender details does not consume this allowance. Both tools return quota_notice and signup_url; the assistant must clearly announce the reached quota and show the signup link in the user’s language.

Your CPV codes, found for you

Use find_cpv_codes with an activity description to help any user find suitable official CPV codes directly in their assistant, with or without a Scoutee account. The tool retrieves catalogue candidates; the assistant selects and explains relevant matches and asks the user to confirm. No additional Scoutee AI call or web research is triggered. Each call returns up to 30 candidates. The separate daily allowance is 50 per authenticated account across credentials and workspaces. Authenticated counters reset at midnight UTC. Without an account, tender search and CPV discovery share TWO queries per rolling hour per IP (IPv6 /64), across the website, tools and MCP sessions. Counters persist across servers and restarts. Read quota.remaining and quota.resets_at; stop on anonymous_query_exhausted or cpv_quota_exceeded. Wait until reset or connect a free account for its account allowance. Published detail browsing has a separate traffic limit. Review suggestions with the user before selecting search filters. When an anonymous result has quota.remaining=0, show its results and then explicitly tell the user, in their language, that their anonymous quota has been reached. Show a clickable 'Create a free account' link to https://scoutee.org/en/signup as the next step to continue now. Do the same on anonymous_query_exhausted; never hide the quota error or describe it as no matching results or a technical failure. Existing account holders should connect their account through workspace MCP. Account quotas still apply; do not promise unlimited access. Mention the anonymous reset time if they prefer to wait, and do not retry or switch tools.

CPV (Common Procurement Vocabulary) is the common public procurement standard across the EU. With workspace access, search_tenders accepts an optional cpv list, such as ["90911200-8"], and includes the code's official descendants. Codes and keywords widen the search with OR; country and budget filters still apply. Choose codes for the procurement market, independently of the assistant's language.

Ask: “Help me find my company's CPV codes with Scoutee, then search for matching tenders in France.” The assistant calls find_cpv_codes, explains suitable codes, and asks you to confirm. Company website or identifier research remains available through the signed-in finder on Scoutee. Public MCP provides previews, while CPV filtering uses workspace MCP with OAuth on any plan or a paid workspace key.

The official CPV catalogue is free to browse and download. Its public API provides code labels, hierarchy, catalogue version, retirement status and replacements without credentials. Returned buyer-published cpv_codes and Scoutee's cpv_inferred_codes remain distinct.

Choose your connection

Both use Streamable HTTP with JSON responses. Enter the complete URL. HTTP GET returning 405 is expected; MCP requests use POST. An unauthenticated initialization at the workspace endpoint returns a 401 OAuth discovery challenge.

Public preview returns titles, buyers, countries, dates, estimates and links to Scoutee. get_public_tender also includes the public excerpt, procedure and CPV codes. It returns at most 10 notices per page and 3 pages, with 1200 calls/hour and 60/minute per IP. This traffic limit is additional to the shared one-query/hour search and CPV discovery allowance.

Workspace tools return full notice data and available document references. The tools do not run Scoutee analyses, manage alerts, read company memory or submit bids. Open Scoutee for those product workflows. Notice data remains in its original language; amounts may use different currencies and missing values mean unknown.

Claude.ai and Claude Desktop

Open Customize → Connectors → Add custom connector (labels can vary by client version). Name it Scoutee and paste the public or workspace URL above. Select no authentication for public previews. For a workspace connection, select OAuth, sign in to Scoutee, choose the workspace and approve the displayed read access. No manual client ID is needed when the client supports dynamic registration.

This is a direct custom connection. Availability in a provider's public directory is a separate approval process. See Claude's connector documentation.

ChatGPT

When custom connectors are available for your account or organization, configure the workspace URL with OAuth, or the public URL without authentication. For a listed Scoutee plugin, use the installation flow in ChatGPT. Listing availability depends on OpenAI's review; a working endpoint does not imply directory approval. See OpenAI's plugin documentation.

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http scoutee https://scoutee.org/api/mcp

Use /mcp to complete sign-in. Replace the URL with https://scoutee.org/api/mcp/public for anonymous previews. See Claude Code setup.

Cursor and other JSON clients

A remote entry in a client's mcpServers configuration looks like this:

{"mcpServers":{"scoutee":{"url":"https://scoutee.org/api/mcp"}}}

Complete the client's OAuth connection when prompted. Each client owns its configuration format; use the generated examples in the Scoutee integration repository and the Cursor documentation.

VS Code uses a servers object in .vscode/mcp.json:

{"servers":{"scoutee":{"type":"http","url":"https://scoutee.org/api/mcp"}}}

See VS Code MCP setup. Avoid putting API keys in a project file; use the client's credential store.

Tools and machine-readable contracts

The tool's input schema is authoritative. Search supports keywords, free text, country and sector filters, estimated values, ordering and pagination. Workspace search also accepts optional cpv codes; the public preview tool does not. Use returned canonical tender IDs for follow-up detail calls. Refine criteria when a result is capped, and distinguish absent data from a zero value.

Download the integration and tool contract or the REST OpenAPI schema. These artifacts and the table below are generated from the running implementation's source contract.

Workspace plans and usage

Each authenticated search consumes one unit. Reading a single notice is unmetered. OAuth shares a bucket per workspace; API keys each have a bucket. REST and MCP share that credential's bucket.

Standard inherits Pro limits; Premium inherits Team limits. These are traffic limits per API process, not purchased analysis credits. Responses include X-Quota-Plan, X-Quota-Limit and X-Quota-Remaining. MCP returns quota_plan, quota_limit and quota_remaining. Respect Retry-After on HTTP 429. The returned page size/depth may be capped: do not assume every matching notice is reachable.

Verify a connection

Ask the assistant to search for open school catering tenders in Belgium, then read one of the returned notices. Check the canonical ID, deadline, currency and source link. Public links open Scoutee; authenticated notice links point to the publishing platform. A notice may close or disappear between calls: handle a missing result rather than inventing details.

For OAuth, verify sign-in, all tools, refresh, disconnect and reconnect. Disconnecting an app in Scoutee revokes its access immediately. On 401, reconnect; on 403, check membership or the paid-plan requirement for an API key. Respect HTTP Retry-After and MCP quota errors rather than retrying in a tight loop.