Connect the Almanac
Free. Sign in once; your model does the rest.
- Claude (claude.ai, Desktop, mobile) — Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → Name The Almanac, URL
https://almanacdata.ai/mcp→ Add → Connect → sign in with your Almanac account (created free on first sign-in) → Allow. Then turn The Almanac on in a chat's tools menu. - Claude Code —
claude mcp add --transport http almanac https://almanacdata.ai/mcp, then/mcpto sign in. - ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other MCP hosts — sign in at almanacdata.ai/connect to get your personal link, and paste it where the host asks for a remote MCP server URL (Authentication: None).
When a form asks — Name: The Almanac · Description: Your hyper-diligent research partner · Authentication: OAuth for Claude, None for a personal link.
The tools
Your model picks the right one — you never call them directly. Listed here so you know what it 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, industries, 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. |
| build_almanac | The flagship. Assembles the complete six-section market research document for any city or ZIP. |
| build_parcel | Research one property from its street address. The server confirms the address and its flood zone; your model works a sourced checklist and writes a Parcel Brief. |
| finish_build | Checks a finished Parcel Brief or Almanac and saves it to your research files as a new version. |
| 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_dossier / update_dossier / get_dossier_history | 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. Every save keeps the version before it; your model can list, read, or restore any of them, and you can download the file from your Connect page. 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.
Prompt guide
Copy any of these into your model once the Almanac is connected. Then make them your own.
Good to know
Coverage. Every U.S. state, city, ZIP code, and census tract, from federal sources at their published vintage. Missing data comes back as missing, with the reason — never a guess.
What it stores. Your private research dossier (the last 50 versions of each project; download them any time from Connect), the research files your assistant saves (the last 40 versions of each; open, download, or delete them from your home page), and per-call usage counts. Never your conversations. Details in Privacy & disclaimers.
Support. brooks@strangeorbit.ai — product, privacy, or security questions.