cityparity-mcp

A small stdio to HTTP bridge for cityparity's MCP server. Use this if your MCP client only supports stdio transport.

If your client speaks Streamable HTTP MCP natively (most modern Claude Desktop builds, Cursor with the HTTP MCP option, etc.), point it at https://mcp.cityparity.com/mcp directly. You don't need this package.

What is cityparity?

cityparity is a cost-of-living and quality-of-life calculator that takes the social safety net seriously: it folds childcare subsidies, parental leave, universal healthcare, and statutory vacation into the comparison alongside take-home pay.

The MCP server exposes six tools agents can call:

• compare_cities: full scenario comparison between two cities
• list_cities: discover supported city slugs
• get_city_summary: single-city profile
• rank_cities: top N cities by composite QoL
• get_safety_net: parental leave, healthcare, vacation lookup
• get_inbound_tax_regime: Italy impatriati, Portugal IFICI, etc.

Install

npm install -g cityparity-mcp

Use with Claude Desktop

Edit your config (macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json; Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cityparity": {
      "command": "cityparity-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop. The cityparity tools appear in the Settings, Developer panel.

Use with Cursor

In Cursor settings, MCP, "Add MCP Server":

{
  "name": "cityparity",
  "command": "cityparity-mcp"
}

Environment

| Variable | Default | Purpose | |---|---|---| | CITYPARITY_MCP_URL | https://mcp.cityparity.com/mcp | Override the upstream endpoint (useful for local dev) | | CITYPARITY_MCP_DEBUG | unset | If set, log request/response framing to stderr |

Privacy

This bridge forwards every JSON-RPC message to mcp.cityparity.com. Your queries reach that endpoint; cityparity logs nothing personally identifiable beyond standard HTTP server logs. No accounts, no telemetry on the client side.

How it works

Reads line-delimited JSON-RPC from stdin, POSTs each line to the MCP HTTP endpoint, writes responses back to stdout. SSE responses stream line-by-line. Notifications (no id) get no reply. The whole bridge is around 150 lines; read bin/cityparity-mcp.mjs if you want to verify.

License

MIT.