How-to guide

Connecting AI Agents to the Knowledge Hub

This guide shows you how to connect an AI agent (Claude Desktop or Claude Code) to the IPA Knowledge Hub so that it answers your questions about IPA research, MEL, and data science practices using the Hub’s own documentation.

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Last Modified

  • September 11, 2026

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TipKey Takeaways
  • The Knowledge Hub publishes an llms.txt index at https://data.poverty-action.org/llms.txt that AI agents can read to find and retrieve relevant pages.
  • You connect an agent by installing uv, registering the ipa-knowledge-hub server, and adding a short instruction that tells the agent to consult the Hub.
  • Once connected, the agent fetches Hub pages on demand and asks you to approve each retrieval, so you can see what it read.

Before you start

This guide assumes you can install command line tools and edit a configuration file. If you have not used a terminal before, this task will be harder than a first exposure should be to familiarize yourself with the terminal shell.

You will need one of the following:

  • Claude Desktop, if you want the Hub available in a chat window.
  • Claude Code, if you work in a repository or folder from the terminal.
NoteNote about AI tools

See the Claude pages of the IPA Knowledge Hub for more information about getting started with Claude.

While this tutorial focuses on Claude Desktop and Claude Code, the general principles apply to other AI agents that support the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

The setup relies on mcpdoc, an open source server that exposes an llms.txt file to AI agents through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). For background on what llms.txt is and why it helps agents navigate a site, see llmstxt.org. For the server itself, see the mcpdoc repository.

Step 1: Install uv

uv runs the mcpdoc server without a separate manual install. Install it once per machine.

On macOS or Linux, run this in a terminal:

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

On Windows, run this in PowerShell:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"

For other installation methods, see the uv installation docs.

Step 2: Register the Knowledge Hub server

The steps differ depending on which agent you use. Follow the section that matches your tool.

If you use Claude Desktop

  1. Open Settings > Developer and select Edit Config.
  2. Add the ipa-knowledge-hub server to the configuration file. If the file already contains an mcpServers block, add this entry inside it rather than pasting a second block.
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ipa-knowledge-hub": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "--with",
        "mcp<2",
        "--from",
        "mcpdoc",
        "mcpdoc",
        "--urls",
        "IPAdocs:https://data.poverty-action.org/llms.txt",
        "--transport",
        "stdio"
      ]
    }
  }
}
  1. Save the file and restart Claude Desktop.

After the restart, the Hub tools appear at the bottom right of the chat input. The first time the agent uses them, it asks you to approve the tool calls.

If you use Claude Code

Run this command in the repository or folder you are working in:

claude mcp add ipa-knowledge-hub -- uvx --with "mcp<2" --from mcpdoc mcpdoc \
  --urls "IPAdocs:https://data.poverty-action.org/llms.txt" \
  --transport stdio

The --with "mcp<2" pin matters: uvx otherwise installs mcp 2.x, which removed the FastMCP API that mcpdoc depends on, and the server fails to start with ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'mcp.server.fastmcp'.

By default, this registers the server for the current project only, so you would need to repeat the command in every repository or folder where you want the Hub available.

To make the Hub available in every project instead, add --scope user to the command:

claude mcp add ipa-knowledge-hub --scope user -- uvx --with "mcp<2" --from mcpdoc mcpdoc \
  --urls "IPAdocs:https://data.poverty-action.org/llms.txt" \
  --transport stdio

To confirm the server is registered, launch Claude Code and run /mcp to view the available tools. Run claude mcp list at any time to see which servers are registered and at which scope.

❯ claude mcp list
ipa-knowledge-hub: uvx --with mcp<2 --from mcpdoc mcpdoc --urls IPAdocs:https://data.poverty-action.org/llms.txt
--transport stdio - ✔ Connected

Step 3: Tell the agent to use the Hub

Registering the server makes the tools available, but the agent will not always reach for them on its own. Add an instruction that directs it to consult the Hub whenever your question concerns IPA practices.

In Claude Code, add the following to a CLAUDE.md file in the repository or folder you are working in:

<rules>
For ANY question about IPA data/research practices or the Knowledge Hub, use the
ipa-knowledge-hub server:
+ call list_doc_sources to get the llms.txt index
+ call fetch_docs to read it
+ reflect on the URLs in the index and on the question
+ call fetch_docs on any relevant pages, then answer
</rules>

In Claude Desktop, which does not read a CLAUDE.md file, you only need to enable the ipa-knowledge-hub connector.

Connect to the IPA Knowledge Hub from Claude Desktop

Step 4: Ask a question

With the server registered and the instruction in place, ask the agent something the Hub covers, such as a question about IPA research methods, MEL, or data science. For example:

How does IPA recommend planning a focus group?

The agent calls list_doc_sources to read the llms.txt index, decides which pages are relevant, and calls fetch_docs to retrieve them before answering. You approve each retrieval as it goes, so you can see which pages informed the response.

If the agent answers without consulting the Hub, restate the instruction from Step 3, or name the server directly: use the ipa-knowledge-hub server to answer.

What the agent can and cannot reach

The mcpdoc server restricts retrieval to the domain of the llms.txt file you registered. Registering the Hub’s llms.txt allows the agent to fetch pages on data.poverty-action.org and nothing else, unless you add other domains explicitly. This keeps retrieval limited to sources you have approved. For the details of this domain control, see the security note in the mcpdoc documentation.

Add other documentation sources

You can register more than one llms.txt source. To include an additional site alongside the Hub, add a second IPAdocs-style entry in the --urls argument, giving it its own name and URL. Each registered domain becomes reachable to the agent under the same domain restriction described above.

References

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