Your model just got a research department.
The Developer's Almanac is a data and intelligence service your AI already knows how to use. Connect it once, and your model can pull verified market data, employer and wage profiles, housing conditions, and full research briefs for any city or ZIP code in the country — live, sourced, and dated, in the middle of whatever you're working on.
No dashboard to learn. No exports. You just ask.
Free to connect. Unlimited use. Access keys are personal — sign in and yours is minted instantly.
Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, and any MCP-compatible model.
How it works
- Connect. Add the Almanac to your model the same way you'd add any tool — takes about a minute. Setup steps below.
- Ask. Type a question about any place in plain English. Your model calls the Almanac, and the answer comes back with its source and vintage attached to every number.
- Build. Ask for the full almanac on a city or ZIP and your model assembles a complete market research document — federal data, employers, housing, incentives, and analysis — in minutes, inside your own workspace.
Prompt guide
Copy any of these into your model once the Almanac is connected. Then make them your own.
The tools
Your model picks the right one — you never call them directly. Listed here so you know what your model can reach.
| search_places | Finds any state, city, ZIP, or region by name and returns its place token — the address every other tool uses. |
| get_place | The full datasheet for one place: overview, employers, workforce, housing, and program access — with the source and vintage stated on every value. Also serves census-tract (neighborhood) profiles. |
| screen_places | The mirror image of search: criteria in, ranked markets out. “Iowa cities of 20–40k with strong wages and little multifamily permitting” — with the exact criteria echoed back. |
| compare_places | Side-by-side comparison of two to six places at any mix of levels — a city against its state, region, and the nation is the classic move. |
| top_cities | The largest U.S. cities by population, nationally or within one state. |
| get_series | The full history of one trend for one place — population, unemployment, permits, jobs — for time-series questions. |
| developers_almanac | The flagship. Assembles the complete six-section market research document for any city or ZIP. |
| show_market_map | A census-tract market map of any city, drawn right in the conversation — renter share, rents, senior density, incomes, and more, benchmarked against the county. |
| find_edges | Where does a market change block-to-block? The sharpest dividing lines between neighboring census tracts — rent cliffs, tenure flips, income lines no citywide average will ever show. |
| get_public_land | What does the city or county own here? Verified government-owned parcel rows for every Iowa county, with a live assessor link per parcel — and the extraction method for everywhere else. |
| get_dossier / update_dossier | Your research memory. The Almanac keeps a private, versioned file of the markets you’ve screened and the strategies you’re running — so your model remembers even when its chat memory resets. Yours alone: stored, never read or harvested. |
| get_playbook | How it all fits: the tool inventory, the order they’re used in, and the operating rules every connected model follows. |
| about_the_data | The honesty tool: sources, refresh status, coverage rules, and the full field catalog. Ask it anything about where a number came from. |
Census-tract detail is live through the same place tokens, and signed-in users get an interactive market map of every U.S. city — tract and ZIP lenses across seven asset classes.
What makes it different
Every number arrives with its provenance. Source, vintage, and verification date travel with every value. If we don't have a number, you get nothing — never a guess.
It runs in real time. The day a source publishes, the Almanac has it. Federal data across all 50 states, refreshed on a live pipeline.
It works where you work. The Almanac isn't a website you visit — it's a capability your model carries. Research happens inside your chat, your documents, your workflow.
Connect the Almanac
- Get your access key. Keys are personal and free — sign in and yours is minted instantly. (Prefer a human? Email brooks@strangeorbit.ai.)
- Your key becomes your connector URL:
https://almanacdata.ai/mcp/YOUR-KEY - Add it to your model:
- Claude — Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → paste the URL.
- ChatGPT — Settings → Apps & Connectors → Advanced → Add MCP connector → paste the URL.
- Perplexity — Settings → Connectors → Add connector → paste the URL.
- Anything else MCP-compatible — it's a standard remote MCP server; paste the URL wherever your tool takes one.
- Ask your first question. Try: “Build me a Developer's Almanac for Mason City, Iowa.”