Federal Register Monitor — US Regulations to JSON

Search the US Federal Register for rules, notices and executive orders by keyword and get title, agency, type, date and URL as JSON — $0.004 per document.

New US regulations, proposed rules, and executive orders all land in the Federal Register first. This actor turns a keyword into the matching documents, so compliance, policy, and legal agents can monitor the regulatory pipeline as structured data — a natural companion to corporate filings.

What this actor does

• Search every US Federal Register document by keyword or agency
• Each result: title, document type (rule/proposed rule/notice), issuing agency, publication date, official URL, abstract
• Filter by postedAfter for a daily regulatory-change feed
• Batch many topics per run; cap spend with maxResults
• Agent-ready: flat JSON with the official html_url + scrapedAt for citation

You only pay for successful results — failed or empty lookups cost nothing.

Why pick this Actor

• Agency names flattened to plain strings and document abstracts included; postedAfter gives compliance agents a daily regulatory delta feed
• Per-result pricing ($0.004/result) with a hard maxResults spend cap — empty lookups cost $0
• Flat, stable JSON schema with sourceUrl + scrapedAt on every item — citation-ready for RAG and grounding
• Batch many queries in one run; overlapping results are deduplicated and charged once
• MCP server, OpenAPI schema, and LangChain/CrewAI tool support out of the box — no glue code

Sample output

Each dataset item is flat, typed JSON with a sourceUrl and scrapedAt for citation/grounding:

{
  "query": "artificial intelligence",
  "source": "federal_register",
  "title": "Advancing American AI",
  "docType": "Presidential Document",
  "agency": [
    "Executive Office of the President"
  ],
  "postedAt": "2026-01-15T00:00:00.000Z",
  "url": "https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/...",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.federalregister.gov/api/v1/documents.json?conditions[term]=artificial+intelligence",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-11T09:00:00.000Z"
}

Input

{"queries":["artificial intelligence"]}

Field	Type	Description
queries / query	array / string	Keyword or topic. One or many.
maxResults	integer	Hard spend cap (billed per result).
keywords / postedAfter	filters	Narrow results; enable delta/scheduled runs.

How much does it cost

Pay-per-result: $0.004 per successful result. No subscription, no compute-unit guesswork, no charge for empty results. An orchestrator can cap spend with maxResults.

How to use it with AI agents (MCP), Claude, and the API

Claude Desktop / Claude Code via Apify MCP

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@apify/actors-mcp-server", "--actors", "oblanceolate_mandola/federal-register-monitor"],
      "env": { "APIFY_TOKEN": "<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>" }
    }
  }
}

Python (Apify API)

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("oblanceolate_mandola/federal-register-monitor").call(run_input={"queries":["artificial intelligence"]})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

TypeScript (Apify API)

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>' });
const run = await client.actor('oblanceolate_mandola/federal-register-monitor').call({"queries":["artificial intelligence"]});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

LangChain / CrewAI tool

from langchain_apify import ApifyActorsTool
tool = ApifyActorsTool("oblanceolate_mandola/federal-register-monitor")  # agent calls it autonomously

OpenAPI schema for self-integrating GPT agents is auto-exposed at the Actor's API tab.

Data & compliance

Reads only publicly accessible endpoints. No login, no credential harvesting, no CAPTCHA bypass. Every result carries its sourceUrl so downstream agents can cite and re-verify.

FAQ

What document types are covered?

Rules, proposed rules, notices, and presidential documents — everything published in the daily Federal Register.

How do I track new regulations?

Set postedAfter to your last-run date and schedule it for an incremental regulatory feed.

Is the data official?

Yes — it comes from the official Federal Register API (federalregister.gov); each result links to the canonical document.

Can AI agents call this Actor directly?

Yes — via the Apify MCP server (snippet above), the OpenAPI schema on the Actor's API tab, or the LangChain/CrewAI tool wrapper. Results are flat JSON with sourceUrl and scrapedAt on every item, so downstream agents can cite and re-verify.

What happens when there are no results?

You pay nothing. Billing is per dataset item delivered, so an empty lookup costs $0, and the run log states why (no match, source rate limit) instead of failing silently.

Changelog

• 1.0 — Initial release: federal_register.