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Recipes

Build a Childcare Agent

Wire CribScore MCP to your agent runtime and answer real childcare questions with cited evidence in under thirty minutes.

Goal#

Build an agent that can: search providers by ZIP, compare two candidates, read jurisdiction trust before quoting metrics, and cite an inspection PDF when asked for evidence. Stack: remote MCP for the fastest start.

Prereqs#

Have an MCP-capable agent client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, your own runtime). Have a CribScore API key. That's it.

  • API key — generate from dashboard.
  • Agent client — anything that speaks MCP streamable HTTP.
  • Remote MCP URL — https://api.cribscore.co/mcp

Wire the MCP config#

Drop the streamable-HTTP block into your client config. The agent now has access to every CribScore tool.

Configjson
{
  "cribscore": {
    "type": "streamable-http",
    "url": "https://api.cribscore.co/mcp",
    "headers": {
      "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"
    }
  }
}

Programmatic agent (Python / TypeScript)#

If you are building a custom agent runtime rather than using a client like Claude Desktop, use an MCP SDK to call tools directly. The pattern is the same: list tools, call by name, pass the same arguments the REST API accepts.

# pip install httpx mcp-client
from mcp_client import MCPClient

client = MCPClient(
    transport="streamable-http",
    url="https://api.cribscore.co/mcp",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"},
)

tools = client.list_tools()
result = client.call(
    "cribscore_search_facilities",
    arguments={"zip_code": "90003", "limit": 5},
)

for facility in result["data"]:
    print(facility["name"], facility.get("safety_score"))

Question patterns the agent should handle#

A useful childcare agent answers four shapes of question. Test each one before shipping; if any one fails, fix the prompt — not the API.

  • Search — 'list licensed centers near 90003 with safety score above 80'
  • Compare — 'compare safety and price for these two facilities'
  • Trust — 'is California decision-grade right now?'
  • Evidence — 'what was the most recent inspection finding for facility X?'

Related#