FamilyRoost

For Claude, ChatGPT and other assistants

Ask your assistant about a Calgary or Edmonton address — with FamilyRoost's data behind the answer

FamilyRoost publishes a small, read-only connector (an MCP server). Add it to an assistant you already use and it can look up designated schools, school profiles with the Roost Rating, specialty programs, neighbourhood coverage and the methodology — the same data as every page on this site, with the same last-updated dates.

Last updated: . Assistant settings move — the official pages linked at the bottom have the current word.

Server URL

https://familyroost.ca/api/mcp

Streamable HTTP · read-only · no sign-in, API key or account · rate-limited (fair use below). Coverage: Calgary and Edmonton.

What your assistant can ask

5 read-only tools, built on the data every FamilyRoost page already shows

School profileschool_profile
Any covered school by name: grades, programs, its Roost Rating with the per-source breakdown, and the last-updated date.
Schools by specialty programschools_by_program
Every Calgary (CBE) school offering a program — French immersion, Montessori, Mandarin, Spanish, science — with grades and ratings. Edmonton programs are on each school's profile.
Neighbourhood schoolsneighbourhood_profile
The schools located in a named community, or the schools a neighbourhood's addresses are designated to, with ratings.
Designated schools for coordinatesdesignated_schools_for_point
The full K-6 / 7-9 / 10-12 designated-school ladder for a latitude and longitude, with each school's rating.
Roost Rating methodologymethodology
How the rating is built — the source weights, what each source measures, and links to the published methodology pages.

Every rating an assistant receives carries its last-updated date and a link to the methodology. A school with too little published data is reported as rating pending — never estimated.

Fair use: 120 calls per hour per calling address, and the coordinates tool 10 per hour / 30 per day. Assistants that run in the cloud (Claude.ai, ChatGPT) reach us from their provider's shared addresses, so each provider gets a pooled allowance instead — 40 coordinate lookups every 10 minutes across all of its users. Deliberately a short window: if one busy assistant session uses the allowance up, it reopens within 10 minutes rather than locking everyone else out for the rest of the hour.

What connecting does

Assistants such as Claude and ChatGPT can use outside tools through an open standard called the Model Context Protocol (MCP). FamilyRoost runs a small MCP server that answers five kinds of question from the same data every page on this site is built from. Once it is connected you ask in your own words:

  • "Which schools is 1800 14A Street SW in Calgary designated to, and how are they rated?"
  • "List the Calgary elementaries with French immersion and their Roost Ratings."
  • "What goes into the Roost Rating, and why is the Fraser score not part of it?"

The assistant turns the address into coordinates itself, calls the server, and shows you the answer with links back to the school pages. Every rating arrives with its last-updated date and a methodology link, and a school we don't have enough published data for is reported as rating pending — never estimated.

Designated schools are boundary-sensitive: if your assistant estimates the coordinates instead of geocoding the address properly, confirm the answer with the address lookup before you act on it.

The server needs no sign-in, key or account, and it speaks only MCP: opening the URL in a normal browser shows an error page, which is expected.

Claude

Custom connectors are available on Claude's Free, Pro and Max plans (Free allows one custom connector). In Claude on the web or in the desktop app:

  1. Open Customize → Connectors and choose Add custom connector.
  2. Name it FamilyRoost and paste the server URL: https://familyroost.ca/api/mcp.
  3. Leave the advanced (OAuth) settings empty — the server has no login — and choose Add.

Or open this one-click link, which pre-fills the same form: claude.ai — add FamilyRoost

On a Team or Enterprise plan an organization owner adds it under Organization settings → Connectors → Add → Custom → Web, after which members connect it from their own Connectors page.

On your phone: add the connector on the web or desktop app; Anthropic's documentation says it is then available in the Claude iOS and Android apps at your next sign-in (installing connectors from the mobile app is listed as beta).

ChatGPT

ChatGPT adds custom MCP servers through Developer mode. OpenAI's two pages linked at the bottom currently list different plans for it — check yours; on Business, Enterprise and Edu workspaces an admin turns it on.

  1. Open Settings → Security and login and switch Developer mode on.
  2. Go to chatgpt.com/plugins and choose + to add a connector.
  3. Give it a name and description, set the connection URL to https://familyroost.ca/api/mcp, choose No Authentication, and create it.

All five tools are read-only, so ChatGPT runs them without asking you to confirm each call.

Developer tools

The same server works in the coding assistants and editors that speak MCP. Each one connects from your own machine.

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http familyroost https://familyroost.ca/api/mcp
claude mcp list   # → familyroost … ✔ Connected

Or, to share it with a project, put this in .mcp.json at the project root:

{ "mcpServers": { "familyroost": { "type": "http", "url": "https://familyroost.ca/api/mcp" } } }

Gemini CLI

gemini mcp add --transport http familyroost https://familyroost.ca/api/mcp

Or in ~/.gemini/settings.json — note the key is httpUrl, not url:

{ "mcpServers": { "familyroost": { "httpUrl": "https://familyroost.ca/api/mcp" } } }

Cursor — in ~/.cursor/mcp.json (all projects) or .cursor/mcp.json (one project):

{ "mcpServers": { "familyroost": { "url": "https://familyroost.ca/api/mcp" } } }

VS Code — in .vscode/mcp.json, or through the Command Palette command MCP: Add Server:

{ "servers": { "familyroost": { "type": "http", "url": "https://familyroost.ca/api/mcp" } } }

Perplexity

On Perplexity's Pro, Max and Enterprise plans: Account settings → Connectors → Custom connector → Remote, paste https://familyroost.ca/api/mcp, set authentication to None and the transport to Streamable HTTP.

What it can't do

  • Take an address as text. The server takes coordinates, not addresses, so we never pay for geocoding on an assistant's behalf — your assistant does that step itself. If it can't, the address lookup on this site does it for you.
  • Compare two addresses side by side, or save a shortlist. Those are the site's own tools (compare, rank a shortlist); the connector is read-only and has no account.
  • The Family+ features. The connector serves the free, published data only — the per-source breakdown included — and stays free.

Privacy

No sign-in, key or account. We count which tool was called, and whether the call came through a cloud assistant or directly from your machine, so we can see whether the connector is used; we do not store the questions or coordinates your assistant sends.

Official setup pages

Prefer the site?

Everything the connector can do, the site does too — with a map.

Type an address on the lookup page to see its K-6, 7-9 and 10-12 designated schools with ratings. The first lookup is free, no account.

Look up an address →