How to Connect TED to Cursor via MCP

💡 No install? Use cloud.anythingmcp.com directly. Sign in, click Connectors → TED (EU Public Tenders), install it (there is no key to paste), mint an MCP API key and you're done. No Docker, no git clone, no local server.

TED + Cursor

Search EU public procurement on TED, Tenders Electronic Daily: calls for tenders, contract awards and other notices from every EU and EEA country by CPV code, buyer, country, deadline, value or full text. Public API, no key needed.

Prerequisites

See the full setup instructions baked into the connector (visible in the in-app store when you select the connector). The required environment variables for this connector are:

(none: public data, no API key)

Step 1 — Install it, no key needed

1. In the connector store, pick TED (EU Public Tenders) and install it. There is nothing to paste: the TED search API is public and needs no account and no API key, and there is no Authorize with Provider step.
2. Check that it works: ask the AI to run ted_count_notices with the query publication-date>=today(-7). It returns how many notices TED published in the last seven days.
3. From then on, ask in plain language. The AI turns your question into a TED expert query (the same query language as the Expert Search page on ted.europa.eu), runs it with ted_search_notices and opens a single notice with ted_get_notice by its publication number, for example 703792-2026.

What it reads: TED (Tenders Electronic Daily) is the online version of the Supplement to the Official Journal of the EU. It publishes public procurement above the EU thresholds from all EU member states, the EEA and other participating countries: some 3,500 to 4,000 notices every working day, from prior information and calls for tenders to contract awards and corrections. Searches filter by CPV code, buyer, country, deadline, value, winner or full text. A CPV code also finds everything below it, so 72000000 (IT services) includes 72260000.

Open calls, awards and market size: for calls you can still bid on, the AI searches with the scope ACTIVE and a tender deadline from today on. Award notices name the winners and the awarded values, so you can see who wins what. ted_count_notices counts matches without fetching them, for market sizing and trends, and the scope LATEST reads only the latest daily edition.

Languages and links: titles and descriptions come in the languages the buyer used. Every notice carries links to its English HTML page, its English PDF and the multilingual XML on ted.europa.eu.

Limits: a page holds 1 to 250 notices. Numbered pages reach the first 15,000 notices of a query; beyond that the AI switches to a mode that walks through every result.

Common errors: TED refuses a faulty query with an error that names the problem: QUERY_SYNTAX_ERROR (with line and column), QUERY_UNKNOWN_FIELD (a field name TED does not know) or QUERY_UNSUPPORTED_FIELD_VALUE (a malformed value, such as a publication number without the year). The AI can check a query with ted_check_query without running it.

Read-only: all four tools only read. Notices are legal texts: before you bid, read the procurement documents linked in the notice and submit through the buyer's own platform. TED's terms of use are in the legal notice at https://ted.europa.eu/en/legal-notice.

The connector does not submit notices to TED and does not submit bids: it searches and reads published notices.

Step 2 — Install the adapter

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/HelpCode-ai/anythingmcp/main/docker-compose.quickstart.yml -o docker-compose.yml
printf 'JWT_SECRET=%s\nENCRYPTION_KEY=%s\n' "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" > .env
docker compose up -d

Step 3 — Add the connector in Cursor

Your server URL: in AnythingMCP, open MCP Servers → the server this connector is on, and copy its URL (https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/mcp/…). Use it wherever this guide shows YOUR_SERVER_ID.

Cursor reads MCP servers from ~/.cursor/mcp.json. Add this entry:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "anythingmcp": {
      "url": "https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/mcp/YOUR_SERVER_ID",
      "headers": { "X-API-Key": "YOUR_MCP_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

1. Create an MCP API key in AnythingMCP under MCP Servers → your server → API keys, and paste it in place of YOUR_MCP_API_KEY.
2. Save the file and restart Cursor.
3. Open Cursor → Settings → MCP and check that anythingmcp is listed and connected.
4. Start chatting: the agent can now call the TED tools.

Available tools

Example prompts

• "Find open calls for tenders for IT services and software in Germany and Austria with a deadline in the next 30 days, and list buyer, title, deadline and estimated value."
• "How many construction tenders did buyers in Italy publish on TED this year, compared with the same period last year?"
• "Which public contracts has Sodexo won in the last twelve months? Show buyer, country, awarded value and publication date."
• "Show me the new tenders for medical equipment in today's edition and give me the link to the English PDF of the most relevant one."

FAQ

Does Cursor support custom MCP servers on the free tier? Yes, MCP is available on Hobby, Pro and Business plans.

Next steps

• Connector landing page
• Connect to Claude
• Connect to ChatGPT