api
The govinfo api is intended to provide data users with a simple means to programmatically access govinfo content and metadata, which is stored in self-describing packages. This initial release provides functionality to retrieve lists of packages added or modified within a given time frame, summary metadata for packages, direct access to content and metadata formats, and equivalent granule information.
Interactive documentation using the OpenAPI/swagger specification is available at https://api.govinfo.gov/docs.
Table of Contents
- Keys
- Versioning
- Issues
- About the Data
- Quickstart - sample requests
- Error Messages
Keys
This API requires the use of an API.data.gov key - signup here. If you already have one, go to the /docs page, click on Authorize, and enter your key. Then you can make all the requests normally.
You can send your API key in a few different ways. See api.data.gov for more information on key usage.
Information on rate limits can be found here. The rate limit is tracked on an rolling hourly basis.
Versioning
One of the API's design goals is to minimize breaking changes, but we are implementing versioning to allow users to specify the version required. We have not determined the number of versions that we plan to support at this time, but it will be based on usage and we will communicate with known users prior to deprecating any version.
If no version is specified in requests, the latest version of the api will be provided.
Issues
See Issues to submit an issue or comment on future development priorities.
See the labels below for additional information:
- Features - list of features that are currently under consideration by the govinfo team. Your feedback is welcome!
- Upcoming - list of features that are currently under development and will be available in our next release. May also be tagged with a release label (Month Year) e.g. "July 2018".
About the Data
Data available in the API represents official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government as made available on GPO's govinfo. For more information about the data that's available from govinfo, see our about page and learn what's available.
Quickstart
Collections Service | samples
Base collections request | sample | formatted
https://api.govinfo.gov/collections?api_key=DEMO_KEY
This request will provide a json list of the collections available within our system, including a collectionCode, collectionName, packageCount, and granuleCount (as applicable). All json response are returned in a minified format.
Collection update
The following request allows you to specify a collection and get a list of packageIds that have been added or modified within the specified time period. collectionCode and startDate are required, as is pageSize. The API requires either offsetMark or offset - the former is preferred, because it allows returning more than 10,000 total results. Optionally, you can include the endDate. pageSize is limited to 1000 results.
For offsetMark, start with offsetMark=* - the API will respond with the correct offsetMark for the next page as part of the nextPage key.
startDate/endDate usage
startDate and endDate are parameters used to search against the lastModified value for the individual packages. This represents the time that this package was added or updated - equivalent to the value listed in the sitemaps. It is not the equivalent to Date Published, Date Issued, or Date Ingested in MODS.
Congressional Bills with startDate only (BILLS) | sample | formatted
Congressional Bills with endDate | sample | formatted
Congressional Record (CREC) | sample | formatted
United States Court Opinions (USCOURTS) | sample | formatted
Published Service
This is similar to the collections service in that it provides users with an easy way to get a list of packages by date. The difference is that this service provides packages based on dateIssued -- this generally corresponds to the publication date of the content itself, rather than the govinfo system update time for a publication.
Format:
https:// api.govinfo.gov/published/dateIssuedStartDate/dateIssuedEndDate?offsetMark=startingRecord&pageSize=number of records in call&collection=comma-separated list of values&api_key=your api.data.gov api key
Examples:
BILLS issued between January and July 2019: https://api.govinfo.gov/published/2019-01-01/2019-07-31?offsetMark=*&pageSize=100&collection=BILLS&api_key=DEMO_KEY
Federal Register and CFR packages in 2019: https://api.govinfo.gov/published/2019-01-01/2019-12-31?offset=*&pageSize=100&collection=CFR,FR&modifiedSince=2020-01-01T00:00:00&api_key=DEMO_KEY
Required parameters
dateIssuedStartDate: the earliest package you are requesting by dateIssued โ YYYY-MM-DDoffsetMark: starting record. The initial request should always be*, and the API will provide the correct offsetMark value for the next page's information in thenextPagekey.- Note: offsetMark effectively replaces the
offsetparameter. The advantage of the theoffsetMarkis that it allows traversals of the results past the first 10,000 recors
- Note: offsetMark effectively replaces the
pageSize: number of records to return per request (e.g. 10)collection: comma-separated list of collections that you are requesting, e.g. https://api.govinfo.gov/published/2019-01-01/2019-12-31?offset=0&pageSize=100&collection=BILLS,BILLSTATUS&api_key=DEMO_KEY - see /collections for a list of collections by code and human-readable name.
Optional parameters:
dateIssuedEndDate: the latest package you are requesting by dateIssued โ YYYY-MM-DDdocClass: Filter the results by overarching collection-specific categories. The values vary from collection to collection. For example, docClass in BILLS corresponds with Bill Type --e.g. s, hr, hres, sconres. CREC (the Congressional Record) has docClass by CREC section: HOUSE, SENATE, DIGEST, and EXTENSIONScongress: congress number (e.g. โ116โ)modifiedSince: equivalent to the startDate parameter in the collections service which is based on lastModifiedโ allows you to request only packages that have been modified since a given date/time โ useful for tracking updates. Requires ISO 8601 format -- e.g. 2020-02-28T00:00:00Z
Packages service | samples
This service allows you to specify a govinfo packageId and retrieve available forms of content and metadata. A /summary json response is available that includes links and basic metadata about the package - generally equivalent to the information available on the details page for that package.
From the summary, you can get access to all available content and metadata formats for a package. Here is a sample download section for the BILLS-115hr1625enr example below, including a link to the related Billstatus package:
"download": {
"txtLink": "https://api.govinfo.gov/packages/BILLS-115hr1625enr/htm",
"xmlLink": "https://api.govinfo.gov/packages/BILLS-115hr1625enr/xml",
"pdfLink": "https://api.govinfo.gov/packages/BILLS-115hr1625enr/pdf",
"modsLink": "https://api.govinfo.gov/packages/BILLS-115hr1625enr/mods",
"premisLink": "https://api.govinfo.gov/packages/BILLS-115hr1625enr/premis",
"zipLink": "https://api.govinfo.gov/packages/BILLS-115hr1625enr/zip"
},
"related": {
"billStatusLink": "https://www.govinfo.gov/bulkdata/BILLSTATUS/115/hr/BILLSTATUS-115hr1625.xml"
},Note that for some packages, zip files are generated upon request, so you may receive a HTTP503 response with a Retry-After header indicating a number of seconds to wait before checking back for the generated zip file. A message body with the following will also appear:
{"message":"Generating ZIP file. Please retry your request again after 30 seconds"}Congressional Bills (BILLS) | sample | formatted
https://api.govinfo.gov/packages/BILLS-115hr1625enr/summary?api_key=DEMO_KEY
Congressional Record (CREC) | sample | formatted
https://api.govinfo.gov/packages/CREC-2018-01-03/summary?api_key=DEMO_KEY
Federal Register (FR) | sample | formatted
https://api.govinfo.gov/packages/FR-2018-04-12/summary?api_key=DEMO_KEY
Granule lists
You can also get a list of available granules for a specified package by adding /granules, offsetMark and pageSize
Congressional Hearings (CHRG) | sample | formatted
Congressional Record (CREC) | sample | formatted
https://api.govinfo.gov/packages/CREC-2018-01-03/granules?offsetMark=*&pageSize=100&api_key=DEMO_KEY
Federal Register (FR) | sample | formatted
https://api.govinfo.gov/packages/FR-2018-04-12/granules?offsetMark=0&pageSize=100&api_key=DEMO_KEY
This provides a list of titles, granuleIds and links to the granule summary, where you can access all available content and metadata formats, including the zip.
Granules
Similar to the package summary, you can retrieve a json summary for any granule, which will return basic metadata as well as links to all available content and metadata.
Congressional Record (CREC) | sample | formatted
Federal Register (FR) | sample | formatted
https://api.govinfo.gov/packages/FR-2018-04-12/granules/2018-07777/summary?api_key=DEMO_KEY
A number of collections have specific additional collection-specific metadata values included in the API response, such as social media information in the CDIR collection. Here are some examples:
Congressional Directory (CDIR)
Related service
The related service allows users to identify and retrieve content and metadata about related content within govinfo based on an access ID. This feature will continue to evolve as we implement additional relationships.
Pattern: https://api.govinfo.gov/related/accessId
Example: https://api.govinfo.gov/related/BILLS-116hr748enr?api_key=DEMO_KEY
This will return a list of relationships, which then can be followed to return specific documents, with relevant high-level metadata, e.g.:
https://api.govinfo.gov/related/BILLS-116hr748enr/BILLS?api_key=DEMO_KEY
Available relationships
From BILLS, BILLSTATUS, or PLAW packageIds:
- Related Bill Versions (BILLS)
- Bill History (HOB)
- Presidential Signing Statements and Remarks (CPD)
- Public and Private Laws (PLAW)
- Congressional Committee Prints (coming soon!)
- Congressional Reports
- U.S. Code References
- Statutes at Large References
From FR documents:
- Related FR documents by Regulation Identifier Number (RIN)
- Code of Federal Regulations Citations
From CHRG:
- Related Hearings - often parts or errata
Error Messages
Occasionally, the API will return a non-200 response. Here is an explanation of some typical error codes:
503 for granule MODS or ZIP requests with a message like "Generating MODS/ZIP file. Please try again in 30 seconds"
The govinfo system generally caches granule MODS and ZIP files based on requests from users. Sometimes a user will generate the first request for a given package or granule and the ZIP or MODS file is not in the cache. In this case, the system will inform the requester that the file is being regenerated. AS part of this response, the system will also return a Retry-After header with a value of 30, indicating that users should retry the request in 30 seconds.
Sometimes the process for generating the MODS or ZIP file will take longer than that 30 seconds. In this case, the system will again send the same 503 message with another Retry-After header until the file is available.
There are some collections where the MODS and ZIP files are automatically pre-cached, but these caches are refreshed continually, resulting in older cached files being removed in an attempt to balance performance with storage concerns.
429 Over Rate limit
The govinfo API has a rate limit on it to prevent usage from a single user from overtaxing our resources and impacting requests from other users. This should be generally high enough to meet most users needs.
Requests to the govinfo API will return the following headers to indicate the overall rate limit and time remaining. The following example is for the DEMO_KEY:
X-RateLimit-Limit: 40
X-RateLimit-Remaining: 39
Regular user keys have a higher default limit.
401 Unauthorized - API_KEY_MISSING
Getting this means that the request didn't include an API key. See Keys above to get a key and learn how to use the API. You can use the DEMO_KEY as a temporary solution, but this has a lower limit. Getting a key for api.govinfo.gov also grants you access to a number of other Federal APIs