Federal Rule Lifecycle Resolver

Resolve one U.S. federal rulemaking and get its administrative lifecycle as one structured record, built from the official Federal Register API and the Regulations.gov API.

Give it a RIN, a Regulations.gov docket ID, a Federal Register document number or URL, or a rule name. It returns:

• the current stage: pre_rule, proposed_comment_open, proposed_comment_closed, final_rule_not_yet_effective, effective, withdrawn or unknown, with a plain-language stageBasis;
• comment period: original and current deadline, whether it was extended or reopened, and whether it is open today;
• final rule publication date, original and current effective date, and whether the effective date was delayed;
• every related Federal Register document (proposal, supplemental proposal, extensions, final rule, corrections, delays, withdrawals) with its official URL and a relationBasis saying why it belongs to this rulemaking;
• the RINs, docket IDs, agencies and CFR parts of the action, plus Regulations.gov docket metadata;
• per-source status, so an outage is never reported as "no such rule".

It is a deterministic data utility: no AI model, no browser, no third-party data.

Scope: administrative record only

The record reflects what the Federal Register and Regulations.gov publish. It does not reflect court decisions, injunctions, stays, Congressional Review Act disapprovals, appropriations riders, enforcement policy or state law, unless a Federal Register document itself announces the change (for example a delay or withdrawal notice). It is not legal advice. Every record carries this note in scopeNote.

Input

Provide at least one field. Several identifiers are cross-checked against each other.

Field	Example	Notes
federalRegisterDocumentNumber	2024-00366	Highest confidence.
federalRegisterUrl	https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/03/08/2024-00366/...	Document number is read from the URL.
rin	2060-AV16	Regulation Identifier Number.
docketId	EPA-HQ-OAR-2021-0317	Regulations.gov docket.
query	Oil and Natural Gas Sector Climate Review	Rule name. Resolved only when one rulemaking clearly dominates.
agency	Environmental Protection Agency	Optional; narrows a query.

Output (abridged)

{
  "schemaVersion": "1.0",
  "status": "resolved",
  "query": {"inputType": "rin", "input": "2060-AV16"},
  "action": {
    "canonicalTitle": "Standards of Performance for New, Reconstructed, and Modified Sources and Emissions Guidelines for Existing Sources: Oil and Natural Gas Sector Climate Review",
    "rins": ["2060-AV16"],
    "docketIds": ["EPA-HQ-OAR-2021-0317"]
  },
  "lifecycle": {
    "currentStage": "effective",
    "proposedRulePublished": "2021-11-15",
    "commentPeriod": {"originalDeadline": "2022-01-14", "currentDeadline": "2023-02-13", "extended": true, "open": false},
    "finalRulePublished": "2024-03-08",
    "effectiveDate": {"original": "2024-05-07", "current": "2024-05-07", "delayed": false}
  },
  "relatedDocuments": [
    {"documentNumber": "2024-00366", "normalizedType": "final_rule",
     "relationBasis": ["matching RIN 2060-AV16", "matching docket ID EPA-HQ-OAR-2021-0317"]}
  ],
  "resolution": {"confidence": "high", "matchedBy": ["RIN"]},
  "sources": {"federalRegister": {"status": "success"}, "regulationsGov": {"status": "success"}},
  "billing": {"billable": true, "eventName": "rule-resolution"}
}

Status

status	Meaning	Charged
resolved	One rulemaking identified, lifecycle reconstructed.	Yes
partial	Identified from an exact identifier; one official system was unavailable but the lifecycle is complete from the other.	Yes (high confidence only)
ambiguous	A rule name matched several rulemakings; candidates lists up to 5 with identifiers to retry.	No
not_found	No official record matches.	No
conflicting_identifiers	The supplied identifiers point to different rulemakings.	No
insufficient_data	Official sources could not support a lifecycle (including a source outage).	No

How dates are reconstructed

Comment deadlines and effective dates come from the official DATES text of each Federal Register document first, then from structured Federal Register fields, then from Regulations.gov. Historical dates are kept: an extended comment period reports both originalDeadline and currentDeadline, and a delayed rule reports both original and current effective dates. Corrections, extensions and delays adjust dates; they never become the stage.

How documents are linked

Documents are linked only on strong evidence: the same RIN, the same docket ID, an official correction link, or a listing in the Regulations.gov docket. Same agency and overlapping CFR parts are recorded as supporting evidence only. Similar titles never link documents. A document that shares a docket but carries a different RIN is excluded and noted in resolution.ambiguities.

Pricing

Pay per event: $0.05 per rule-resolution, charged only for resolved results and high-confidence partial results, at most once per run. Ambiguous, not-found, conflicting and insufficient-data results are free apart from the platform's tiny actor-start event.

Development

See AGENTS.md. Tests run offline against saved official API responses.