# Federal Register Monitor (`titan_coder/federal-register-monitor`) Actor

Federal Register tools dump the whole feed and let you find what changed. This one watches your agencies and reports only documents published since your last check — rules, proposed rules, notices. A day with nothing new is free.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/titan\_coder/federal-register-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [Radu Furtuna](https://apify.com/titan_coder) (community)
- **Categories:** Business, News
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$10.00 / 1,000 new document detecteds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Federal Register Monitor

Durable monitor for new documents — final rules, proposed rules, and notices — published by a US federal
agency in the Federal Register, via the official, free Federal Register API. No API key needed.

### Why

Regulatory/compliance teams, lobbyists, and law firms want to know the moment a tracked agency publishes
something new (a proposed rule can start a public-comment clock; a final rule can trigger compliance
deadlines). Existing scrapers on Apify only do a one-off pull or a lightly-adopted monitor; none durably
track what's already been seen and pay only for genuinely new documents.

### How it works

1. Each `watch` is one federal agency you track by its Federal Register agency slug (e.g.
   `environmental-protection-agency` — full list at federalregister.gov/api/v1/agencies).
2. Every run fetches that agency's most recent documents (the API returns newest first) and diffs them
   against a durable checkpoint of document numbers already seen for that watch.
3. Genuinely new documents are pushed to the dataset and billed once each (`new-document-detected`);
   checking an agency with nothing new costs nothing beyond the fixed platform run cost.

### Input

```json
{
  "monitorId": "my-agencies",
  "watches": [
    { "watchId": "epa", "agencySlug": "environmental-protection-agency" },
    { "watchId": "fda", "agencySlug": "food-and-drug-administration" }
  ],
  "notifyOn": "new_alerts",
  "webhookUrl": "https://example.com/webhook"
}
```

Add more watches later under the same `monitorId` — each watch keeps its own independent history.

### Billing

Pay-per-event: `new-document-detected` — charged only for a document genuinely new since the previous
check of that watch. The first check of a new watch establishes a baseline (no charge). Failed/blocked
checks are never charged.

### Honest limits

- Each check fetches the agency's 100 most recent documents — sufficient for monitoring, since new
  documents appear at the top. `coverage.windowFullCount` flags when an agency has published more than fit
  in that page since the last check (informational, not an error).
- `seenIds` per watch is capped (FIFO by discovery order); an evicted, then re-surfaced document number can
  be re-billed — only matters for extremely high-volume agencies.
- We don't invent data: if the API response shape changes, or a watch's `agencySlug` is invalid, the run
  reports it honestly instead of silently returning zero results.

Author: OmniCoder (https://t.me/OmniCoder)

# Actor input Schema

## `monitorId` (type: `string`):

Name of this monitor's durable history (a-z, 0-9, dash; up to 40 chars).

## `watches` (type: `array`):

1-30 objects: {"watchId": "epa", "agencySlug": "environmental-protection-agency"}. agencySlug is the Federal Register agency slug (full list: federalregister.gov/api/v1/agencies). New agencies can be added later under the same monitorId.

## `notifyOn` (type: `string`):

new\_alerts — post the webhook only when new paid documents were delivered; always — post it every run; never — do not call webhookUrl at all.

## `webhookUrl` (type: `string`):

Optional. Receives a digest of delivered (paid) new documents as JSON. HTTPS only.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "monitorId": "my-agencies",
  "watches": [
    {
      "watchId": "epa",
      "agencySlug": "environmental-protection-agency"
    }
  ],
  "notifyOn": "new_alerts"
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

Every row this run produced. Key fields: watchId, documentNumber, type, title, publicationDate.

## `coverage` (type: `string`):

What this run actually covered and what it charged for: per-target status and reason, rows delivered and rows billed. Enough to reconcile every charge against every row.

## `digest` (type: `string`):

A short human-readable summary of what this run found, written every run.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "monitorId": "my-agencies",
    "watches": [
        {
            "watchId": "epa",
            "agencySlug": "environmental-protection-agency"
        }
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("titan_coder/federal-register-monitor").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "monitorId": "my-agencies",
    "watches": [{
            "watchId": "epa",
            "agencySlug": "environmental-protection-agency",
        }],
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("titan_coder/federal-register-monitor").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "monitorId": "my-agencies",
  "watches": [
    {
      "watchId": "epa",
      "agencySlug": "environmental-protection-agency"
    }
  ]
}' |
apify call titan_coder/federal-register-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,titan_coder/federal-register-monitor"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/XYJFbM0xGBfeOujz3/builds/h1fp0blPL9wdeCG3q/openapi.json