OpenContext is Boston’s beta project for making the city’s open data easier to use without requiring residents to know how to find datasets or write queries. The City’s showcase describes its aim as broadening access to data that can otherwise demand specialist skills to analyze.1
The project connects a generative AI client to a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, a way for AI models to interact with technical resources. A user can ask a question in plain language; OpenContext searches Analyze Boston for a relevant dataset, generates a SQL query, and retrieves live data to produce an answer grounded in the city’s data infrastructure.1 The City presents this as a way for employees and residents to explore its datasets, while noting that the system’s agent skills are intended to operate with privacy and safety concerns in mind.1
The project is associated with Srihari Raman of the City of Boston’s Department of Innovation and Technology, who is identified as the author of the city’s OpenContext code repository.2 The repository describes the project as making civic data more contextualized and accessible.2 The City’s showcase labels it beta; the available sources do not establish a founding date or report measured outcomes, so its impact should not yet be treated as quantified.21