# FRTracker

> Federal + state regulatory intelligence. Tracks federal regulations and decomposes each rule into individual binding obligations ("who must do what"). Current result (computed 2026-11-08): inclusive obligation-regulatory-action survival is 77.8% (19,840 of 25,503 obligation-regulatory-action observations). Unit: RIN/docket lineage x obligation.

## Key pages
- [Methodology](https://frtracker.app/methodology): how the data is produced, validated, bounded, and corrected
- [Regulatory Provenance Citator](https://frtracker.app/research/citator): frozen CFR-section dossiers joining only independently evidenced changes, explicit comment citations, and agency passages that print the same legal object
- [Citator Edition History](https://frtracker.app/research/citator/history): release-to-release CFR-object comparison that distinguishes broader reviewed scope from changes in FRTracker's representation
- [Regulatory Dark Matter](https://frtracker.app/dark-matter): rules that bypassed notice-and-comment — interim final, direct final, temporary
- [CFR History attestations](https://frtracker.app/research/cfr-history): frozen, checksum-bound, DOI-citable reproducibility attestations of dated CFR text — cite what a regulation said on a specific date in an independently verifiable form. Cite a specific versioned release URL, not /latest.
- [For Institutions](https://frtracker.app/for-institutions): capabilities, scale, and validation posture for universities, law schools, policy programs, newsrooms, and compliance teams (inquiries only; no pricing)
- [Independence policy](https://frtracker.app/independence): free public collection, methods and limits published, corrections on the record, paid work non-exclusive
- [Which rules amended this regulation](https://frtracker.app/amendments): search the amendment index — final rules whose own amendatory instructions address a CFR part or section (2020-present). Machine-readable at /api/amendments?title=40&part=52 (public, no key).
- [Datasets](https://frtracker.app/datasets): available datasets
- [FR-AMD benchmark](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22096638): open, versioned benchmark of Federal Register amendment instructions with machine-validated labels and a reference scorer (Zenodo, CC-BY-4.0; concept DOI resolves to the latest version)
- [Developers](https://frtracker.app/developers): public API documentation
- [OpenAPI spec](https://frtracker.app/api/openapi.json): full machine-readable API spec
- [MCP server](https://frtracker.app/developers/mcp): remote Model Context Protocol endpoint at POST https://frtracker.app/mcp — lets an AI agent query FRTracker as a grounded tool (provision history, CFR changes, corpus stats keyless; search, rules, obligations, comments with a free API key sent as an Authorization: Bearer header). Stateless, read-only; results carry FRTracker's source links and coverage limits.

## Stable URL schemes (never repurposed; safe to cite)
- Federal Register document: https://frtracker.app/fr/{document_number} — e.g. https://frtracker.app/fr/2026-18631
- Proposed-vs-final redline: https://frtracker.app/fr/diff/{pair_id} — pair ids are listed at https://frtracker.app/pairs
- CFR part: https://frtracker.app/cfr/{title}/{part} — e.g. https://frtracker.app/cfr/40/60
- Agency: https://frtracker.app/agencies/{slug} — e.g. https://frtracker.app/agencies/environmental-protection-agency
- Monthly roundup: https://frtracker.app/monthly/{YYYY-MM} — e.g. https://frtracker.app/monthly/2026-09
- Docket: https://frtracker.app/docket/{docket_id} — e.g. https://frtracker.app/docket/EPA-HQ-OAR-2023-0234
- Statute section: https://frtracker.app/statute/{title}/{section} — e.g. https://frtracker.app/statute/42/7401

## What an obligation count does not measure
- It measures the density of regulatory text (binding statements extracted), not compliance burden or cost.
- A rescission or deregulatory rule reads as zero or few obligations; a low count is not evidence of low impact.
- Obligations are extracted by a deterministic pipeline. Precision has been audited and recall has been measured: the extractor misses a material share of obligations, so counts are a floor, not a census.

## Research
- [Filter, Not Editor](https://frtracker.app/filternoteditor): the survival-of-obligations study, with its method and limits

## Public API (read-only; some endpoints require a free API key)
- GET https://frtracker.app/api/fr-docs — Federal Register documents. Filters: type, agency, docket, entity, pathway (interim_final | temporary | direct_final | final | other)
- GET https://frtracker.app/api/search — search rules and obligations
- GET https://frtracker.app/api/v2/fr/{document_number} — a single rule + its obligations
- GET https://frtracker.app/api/v2/agency/{slug} — an agency's rules
- GET https://frtracker.app/api/export/fr-docs — bulk Federal Register docs (cursor-paginated; supports the pathway filter)
- GET https://frtracker.app/api/openapi.json — full OpenAPI spec
- GET https://frtracker.app/api/cfr-history/releases/{release_id}/manifest.json — a frozen attestation release's canonical manifest (its SHA-256 equals the pin published on the release page)
- GET https://frtracker.app/api/cfr-history/releases/{release_id}/source/{snapshot_id} — the attested raw source bytes for one dated CFR snapshot (hash-checked against the release pin before serving; script-friendly, no key needed)

## Citation and custom research
- The Federal Register and eCFR source material is a U.S. Government work in the public domain. The
  obligation extraction and proposed→final pairings layered on top of it are FRTracker's own work.
  The historical ~29%/~32% survival classifications are withdrawn. Cite only the current occurrence-scoped, obligation-regulatory-action result shown on the methodology page, with its unit and computation date.
- Citing a specific figure or obligation: cite the page URL. FRTracker URLs are stable and are cited
  in published legal scholarship; they are never repurposed.
- Publication-history only: the frozen deposit is Andrew Leahey, *Regulatory
  Obligation Survival Dataset — Federal Register*, Zenodo, DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21136916. That deposit
  is immutable publication history, not a corrected corpus, and its survival figures are withdrawn.
- If you need a custom report on a specific agency, rulemaking, comment docket, or regulatory topic,
  use https://frtracker.app/contact. Requests are scoped individually.

## Caveats (please reflect these when citing)
- Obligation extraction is deterministic (no AI/ML), precision-favored (~91% inclusive, single-annotator validation); counts are estimates.
- Relationships are correspondence, not causation (e.g. comment→change is topical, not proven causal).
- Rulemaking-pathway labels (interim/temporary/direct-final) cover 2010–present; pre-2010 is unlabeled.