US Rule Watchlist Monitor

Monitor an explicit FederalRegister.gov agency watchlist for newly published or changed rules and proposed rules. The Actor uses one bounded public API request per agency, stores a compact baseline, and returns only changed agency snapshots by default.

What it does

• Accepts explicit Federal Register agency slugs only; it does not crawl arbitrary URLs, PDF files, private portals, or user accounts.
• Queries only published RULE and PRORULE source documents through the public FederalRegister.gov API.
• Retains a bounded newest-document snapshot per agency, including document number, title, document type, publication date, source URLs, optional source abstract, and effective date when supplied.
• Persists normalized snapshots by baselineKey to detect availability and document-metadata changes.
• Returns structured per-agency errors instead of terminating a whole watchlist run.
• Omits unchanged agency snapshots by default, keeping scheduled datasets compact.

Good use cases

• Compliance teams tracking a narrow agency rulemaking watchlist.
• Policy analysts collecting a machine-readable review queue for specific federal agencies.
• Legal operations teams that need source metadata before their own legal review workflow.

Input

• agencySlugs: required FederalRegister.gov agency slugs, such as environmental-protection-agency.
• documentTypes: optional RULE and/or PRORULE; both are queried by default.
• maxAgencies: run cap from 1 to 25; v1 defaults to 10.
• maxDocumentsPerAgency: bounded newest source documents from 1 to 10; v1 defaults to 3.
• includeUnchanged: include unchanged source snapshots after an initial baseline.
• baselineKey: separate stored baselines for environments, clients, or schedules.

Example:

{
  "agencySlugs": ["environmental-protection-agency"],
  "documentTypes": ["RULE"],
  "maxAgencies": 1,
  "maxDocumentsPerAgency": 1,
  "includeUnchanged": false,
  "baselineKey": "production"
}

Output

Each dataset row represents one agency snapshot that changed, was explicitly requested as unchanged, or could not be checked.

{
  "agencySlug": "environmental-protection-agency",
  "checkedAt": "2026-07-10T01:00:00.000Z",
  "status": "ok",
  "changed": true,
  "changeTypes": ["documents"],
  "documents": [{
    "documentNumber": "2026-13843",
    "title": "Air Plan Approval; Michigan; Redesignation and Maintenance Plan",
    "type": "Rule",
    "publicationDate": "2026-07-09",
    "htmlUrl": "https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/..."
  }],
  "previousDocuments": [],
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.federalregister.gov/api/v1/documents.json?...",
  "snapshotHash": "...",
  "warnings": []
}

status values:

• ok: the source returned usable document records.
• not_found: no matching public document records were returned.
• partial: usable records were returned but malformed source rows were omitted.
• error: invalid agency input or a source failure; inspect warnings for a machine-readable code.

Pricing status

Pay Per Event is enabled at $0.002 per checked agency using the checked-rule-watchlist-agency event. Input is capped at 25 agencies, so a full run costs at most $0.05 in event charges. Charging happens before each FederalRegister.gov source request and stops before the next source request when the Apify event-charge limit is reached.

Source, terms, and limitations

• Source: FederalRegister.gov public API: https://www.federalregister.gov/developers/documentation/api/v1.
• The source documentation says its APIs are public and require no API keys. This Actor uses one fixed-host HTTPS JSON query per explicit agency with a 8-second timeout, two redirect maximum, 256 KiB response cap, and no browser or proxy.
• The source site says its XML renditions are an unofficial informational resource; buyers must verify legal research against an official edition or the linked official PDF/GPO source.
• This Actor is not legal advice, does not determine applicability, deadlines, or compliance obligations, and must not be the sole basis for legal or regulatory decisions.
• This is an unofficial independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Office of the Federal Register, NARA, GPO, or FederalRegister.gov. No government seal, logo, or third-party branded asset is used.

Recommended workflow

1. Run once with a stable baselineKey to establish an agency snapshot.
2. Schedule later checks with the same key.
3. Keep includeUnchanged=false for a compact review queue.
4. Open the source URLs and verify against official sources before acting on any result.