Federal Register Monitor — agency, term & date

Query the official U.S. Federal Register public JSON API and get one normalized dataset item per document. Filter by agency slug, search term, document type (RULE / PRORULE / NOTICE / PRESDOCU), significant-only flag, and publication date — built for compliance, policy, and legal-ops monitoring.

Not affiliated with the U.S. Federal Register / NARA / OFR. Public API data only. Verify every document on the official htmlUrl before taking action. Do not use official NARA or OFR logos when republishing.

Features

• Official documents.json API — HTTP GET only; no browser, no HTML scraping
• Filters — term, agency slugs, document types, publication date range, significant-only (EO 12866)
• Normalized output — stable fields (documentNumber, title, type, agencies, publicationDate, effectiveOn, commentsCloseOn, htmlUrl, pdfUrl, abstract, significant, cfrReferences, …)
• Safety by default — empty input auto-applies a ~14-day publication window so Store Try / first runs stay bounded
• Bounded & resilient — maxItems (default 50, hard cap 1000), pagination with ~200 ms pacing, retry/backoff on HTTP 429 / 5xx, clear User-Agent
• Optional raw payload — attach the original Federal Register JSON under raw when includeRaw is true

Who is it for

• Compliance & regulatory-affairs teams watching rules and notices by agency
• Policy / government-affairs shops tracking topics (e.g. cybersecurity, PFAS, tariffs)
• Legal-ops and research workflows that need machine-readable FR metadata + links
• Developers who want a ready-made Apify Actor instead of hand-rolling the Federal Register client

How it works

1. Open this Actor on Apify and set filters (or leave empty for the ~14-day default window).
2. Optionally set maxItems, significantOnly, includeRaw, and abstractMaxLength.
3. Run the Actor. It calls
   GET https://www.federalregister.gov/api/v1/documents.json?…
   with only documented conditions[...] parameters and selected fields[].
4. Read results from the default dataset — one row per document — or download via the dataset API URL in the run output.

Tips: Prefer filtered queries. Upstream pagination covers only the first ~2000 matches; use date bounds for large corpora. Agency slugs look like environmental-protection-agency (see agencies).

Official docs: Federal Register API v1.

Input

Field	Maps to API	Notes
term	conditions[term]	Full-text search
agencies	conditions[agencies][]	Agency ID slugs
documentTypes	conditions[type][]	RULE, PRORULE, NOTICE, PRESDOCU
publicationDateStart / publicationDateEnd	conditions[publication_date][gte] / [lte]	Prefer YYYY-MM-DD
significantOnly	conditions[significant]=1	EO 12866 significant docs only
maxItems	(client)	Default 50, max 1000
includeRaw	(client)	Attach original JSON under raw
abstractMaxLength	(client)	Default 500

Input example

{
  "term": "cybersecurity",
  "agencies": [],
  "documentTypes": ["RULE", "PRORULE", "NOTICE"],
  "publicationDateStart": "2026-06-01",
  "publicationDateEnd": "2026-09-24",
  "significantOnly": false,
  "maxItems": 25,
  "includeRaw": false
}

Store Try / first-run uses a similar term + date window + modest maxItems so an unedited run succeeds. If you clear all filters, the Actor auto-applies a ~14-day publication window.

Output example

{
  "documentNumber": "2026-19584",
  "title": "Flight Operations: Pilot requirements; Use of oxygen",
  "type": "Proposed Rule",
  "agencies": ["Transportation Department", "Federal Aviation Administration"],
  "publicationDate": "2026-09-24",
  "effectiveOn": null,
  "commentsCloseOn": "2026-11-23",
  "htmlUrl": "https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/09/24/2026-19584/…",
  "pdfUrl": "https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-09-24/pdf/2026-19584.pdf",
  "publicInspectionPdfUrl": "https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-19584.pdf?…",
  "abstract": "FAA proposes to raise the altitudes at which a pilot is required to don an oxygen mask…",
  "significant": null,
  "topics": ["Air carriers", "Aircraft", "Aviation safety"],
  "cfrReferences": ["14 CFR part 91", "14 CFR part 135"],
  "source": "federalregister-gov"
}

More samples: OUTPUT.example.json.

Pricing

Pay-per-event pricing:

Event	Price (USD)	Notes
Actor start (apify-actor-start)	$0.00005	Charged once per run
Dataset item (apify-default-dataset-item)	$0.0025	Per normalized document row ($2.50 per 1,000 results)

You pay only for the documents the Actor returns. For example, a 50-document run costs about $0.125 in result charges plus the start fee.

See PRICING.md for the locked PPE record.

Source, rate limits & ToS

• Public API, no API key. Docs explicitly invite HTTP clients: API Documentation, REST API overview.
• FederalRegister.gov restricts aggressive HTML scraping and steers programmatic access to this API. This Actor uses only /api/v1/… endpoints.
• robots.txt disallows some HTML search paths (/documents/search, etc.); it does not disallow /api/. Prefer the API (as this Actor does).
• Usage note from official docs: republishers must not use official NARA or OFR logos/seals.
• Upstream pages only the first ~2000 matches; use date filters for larger pulls. This Actor paces ~200 ms between pages and retries with backoff on 429 / 5xx.
• Always verify critical decisions against the official document page in htmlUrl.

FAQ / disclaimer

Is this official Federal Register / NARA software? No. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by NARA, OFR, or FederalRegister.gov.

What happens if I set no filters? The Actor auto-applies a ~14-day publicationDateStart / publicationDateEnd window so Store Try / first runs succeed without dumping years of documents. Pass explicit filters for precision.

Is the data complete? Dataset items are convenience transforms of public API metadata and may be incomplete, delayed, or truncated (abstract). Full document body is not fetched by default (use htmlUrl / pdfUrl). Verify every document on the official page before compliance or legal action.

What are valid agency IDs? Use Federal Register agency slugs (e.g. environmental-protection-agency), not display names. See https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies.

What does significant mean? When present, it reflects documents associated with the Unified Agenda and deemed significant under EO 12866. Many records return null.

Why might a hit's title or abstract not contain my term? term is full-text search on the upstream Federal Register API (conditions[term]). Matches can come from body or other indexed fields, so the returned title / abstract may not literally include the keyword.

Is this legal advice? No.

Limitations

• Metadata + links only; no full-text body download in this Actor
• Upstream pagination ceiling (~2000 matches) — partition by date/agency for large jobs
• significant is often null even for important rules
• Agency filter requires correct slugs
• Public government data may lag or change; not an official gazette substitute for citation

Local development

npm install
# place input at storage/key_value_stores/default/INPUT.json
npm run dry-run

Requires Node.js 18+. Uses Apify SDK v3 (apify package).

License

MIT (Actor scaffold). Upstream Federal Register content remains U.S. government public information; do not use official NARA/OFR logos when republishing.