Grassy Knees MCP server

A small, read-only Model Context Protocol server that lets AI assistants answer questions like "what can I do with my kids in Denver this weekend?" with real listings from Grassy Knees. Grassy Knees is a free directory of kids' and family events, classes and places across 42 US metro areas. Every listing is researched from the organizer's own page and shows the date it was last checked.

Every result includes the listing's grassyknees.com page URL, the organizer's official link and the last-checked date. Each call returns at most 20 listings.

Example prompts

"What can I do with my kids in Denver this weekend?"
"Free things for a 4-year-old in Washington, DC in the next 7 days."
"Any STEM events for a 10-year-old in Seattle on Saturday?"
"Where can we go ice skating near Chicago?"
"Halloween events for kids in Austin."
"Tell me more about https://grassyknees.com/denver/activities/rock-creek-farm-pumpkin-patch-and-corn-maze--listing-69c7739ea9ac9cfaddb69622"

Install

Requires Node.js 20 or later. No API key needed.

Claude Desktop

Add this to claude_desktop_config.json (Settings → Developer → Edit Config):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "grassyknees": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "grassyknees-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

claude mcp add grassyknees -- npx -y grassyknees-mcp

Cursor

Add this to ~/.cursor/mcp.json (or .cursor/mcp.json in a project):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "grassyknees": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "grassyknees-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Any other MCP client that runs stdio servers works the same way: the command is npx -y grassyknees-mcp.

Or with Docker: build the image with docker build -t grassyknees-mcp . and use docker run -i --rm grassyknees-mcp as the command.

Tools

Tool	What it does
`list_metros`	The 42 metro areas covered, with the id to pass to other tools (for example `denver`, `new-york`, `washington-dc`, `dallas-fort-worth`) and each metro's page URL.
`search_activities`	Search one metro. Filters: `when` (`today`, `tomorrow`, `this-weekend`, `next-7-days`, `next-30-days`) or `start_date`/`end_date`, `kind` (`event`, `program`, `place`, `any`), `free_only`, `age`, `category`, `query` (keywords), `limit` (1–20, default 10). Soonest first.
`get_activity`	Full details for one listing from its grassyknees.com URL or id: schedule, upcoming dates, venue, ages, price, registration link, last-checked date.
`seasonal_guide`	The Halloween, Christmas (lights and holiday events), ice skating or Easter guide for a metro, or the all-metros overview, as Markdown trimmed to `max_chars` (default 8,000).

Dates are in the metro's local time. this-weekend means Friday to Sunday, the same window as the site's /<metro>/this-weekend page.

Sample transcript

From npm run smoke, run against the live site on 2026-10-28 (trimmed):

tools: list_metros, search_activities, get_activity, seasonal_guide

=== search_activities {"metro":"denver","when":"this-weekend","limit":3}
60 events in Denver for this weekend (2026-10-30 to 2026-11-01); showing the first 3:

1. **[School's Out! Day: Pumpkins & Potions](https://grassyknees.com/denver/activities/school-s-out-day-pumpkins-and-potions--listing-023a33783babb5880fc24e03)**
   Fri, Oct 30 · 8:30 AM–3:30 PM · JCC Denver (Staenberg-Loup Jewish Community Center), 350 S. Dahlia St., Denver, CO 80246
   Ages 5+ · From $100 (...) · Arts & crafts · last checked 2026-10-14

2. **[Rock Creek Farm Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze](https://grassyknees.com/denver/activities/rock-creek-farm-pumpkin-patch-and-corn-maze--listing-69c7739ea9ac9cfaddb69622)**
   Fri, Oct 30 · 9:30 AM–7:00 PM (also other dates) · Rock Creek Farm, 2005 S 112th St., Broomfield, CO 80020
   Farm admission applies to ages 4 & up · From $10 (...) · Outdoors · last checked 2026-10-28

3. **[JTML Hoppy Halloween Storytime](https://grassyknees.com/denver/activities/jtml-hoppy-halloween-storytime--listing-5ee8642f996422fe0023e407)**
   Fri, Oct 30 · 10:00 AM–11:00 AM · John Tomay Memorial Library, 605 6th Street, Georgetown, CO 80444
   Kids (event category) · Check price · Community · last checked 2026-10-14

More on grassyknees.com: https://grassyknees.com/denver/this-weekend

=== search_activities {"metro":"DC","when":"this-weekend","free_only":true,"limit":3}
20 events, free in Washington, DC for this weekend (2026-10-30 to 2026-11-01); showing the first 3:

1. **[Play Day in the Park at Black Hill Discovery Center](https://grassyknees.com/washington-dc/activities/play-day-in-the-park-at-black-hill-discovery-center--listing-c17ea7ba367fd70feca1648e)**
   Fri, Oct 30 · 11:00 AM–12:00 PM (also other dates) · Black Hill Discovery Center, 20926 Lake Ridge Drive, Boyds, MD 20841
   Ages 6 mos to 3 yrs · Free ($0.00) · Outdoors · last checked 2026-10-24
...

=== get_activity {"url_or_id":"https://grassyknees.com/denver/activities/school-s-out-day-pumpkins-and-potions--listing-023a33783babb5880fc24e03"}
# School's Out! Day: Pumpkins & Potions
- When: Fri, Oct 30 · 8:30 AM–3:30 PM
- Where: JCC Denver (Staenberg-Loup Jewish Community Center), 350 S. Dahlia St., Denver, CO 80246
- Official page: https://www.jccdenver.org/camps/schools-out-camp/
- Last checked: 2026-10-14
...

=== seasonal_guide {"season":"ice-skating","metro":"denver","max_chars":1500}
# Ice skating with kids in Denver
> 9 ice rinks, public skates, holiday skate nights and learn-to-skate classes for kids in the Denver–Aurora–Centennial area this winter, ...
[Trimmed to 1500 of 6484 characters. Full guide: https://grassyknees.com/denver/ice-skating (Markdown: https://grassyknees.com/denver/ice-skating.md)]

How it gets data

Read-only, public endpoints on grassyknees.com, one request at a time:

GET /api/activities?city=<metro>&fields=list for searches (one metro's current list, filtered and capped locally to 20 results),
GET /api/activities?ids=<id> for get_activity,
the site's Markdown pages (/<metro>/<season>.md) for seasonal_guide.

Responses are cached in memory for 10 minutes, so follow-up questions about the same metro don't refetch. Requests send User-Agent: grassyknees-mcp/<version>. Nothing is written to the site and no personal data is sent.

Set GRASSYKNEES_ORIGIN to point the server at another deployment (for testing).

Development

npm install
npm run build
npm run smoke            # calls each tool once against the live site (4 requests)
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector --cli node dist/index.js --method tools/list

Credit

Data: Grassy Knees, grassyknees.com. When you show results, link to the listing's grassyknees.com page and mention its last-checked date. Details can change, so confirm on the organizer's official page before you go.

License

MIT for this server's code. Listing data belongs to Grassy Knees and is provided for lookups, not bulk copying.

Grassy Knees MCP server