congressgov_bill_lookup
Declared read-onlyShow server-provided details
Congress.gov Bill Lookup
Server description (copied; language not verified)
Browse and retrieve U.S. legislative bill data from Congress.gov. Discover bills by filtering on congress, bill type, and date range — there is no keyword search. Use 'list' to browse (requires congress, defaults to most-recently-updated first), 'get' for full bill detail (sponsor, policy area, CBO estimates, law info), or drill into a specific bill with 'actions', 'amendments', 'cosponsors', 'committees', 'subjects', 'summaries', 'text', 'titles', or 'related' (each requires congress + billType + billNumber). 'text' lists the published versions and their format URLs; 'content' then reads one version's actual text, a bounded character window at a time. 'summaries' takes an optional versionCode selector and returns each row's text a bounded character window at a time — a row past the window carries textTotalCharacters/textTruncated/textNextOffset, and characterOffset reads on from there.
Input schema (server-provided preview — do not copy)
{
"type": "object",
"$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
"required": [
"congress",
"operation"
],
"properties": {
"limit": {
"type": "integer",
"default": 20,
"maximum": 250,
"minimum": 1,
"description": "Results per page (1-250)."
},
"order": {
"enum": [
"recent",
"oldest"
],
"type": "string",
"default": "recent",
"description": "Sort order for 'list' (sorts by update date). 'recent' (default) is newest first; 'oldest' is ascending. Ignored by other operations."
},
"format": {
"enum": [
"text",
"xml"
],
"type": "string",
"default": "text",
"description": "Document format for 'content'. 'text' is GPO's Formatted Text — plain, pre-formatted print output, published for every document checked. 'xml' prefers United States Legislative Markup and falls back to Formatted XML; it exists on some bill text versions and on no committee report or Congressional Record article. PDF is not retrieved — read one at the format URLs 'text'/'articles' return."
},
"offset": {
"type": "integer",
"default": 0,
"maximum": 9007199254740991,
"minimum": 0,
"description": "Pagination offset."
},
"billType": {
"enum": [
"hr",
"s",
"hjres",
"sjres",
"hconres",
"sconres",
"hres",
"sres"
],
"type": "string",
"description": "Bill type code. Required for get and sub-resource operations."
},
"congress": {
"type": "integer",
"maximum": 9007199254740991,
"description": "Congress number (e.g., 118, 119).",
"exclusiveMinimum": 0
},
"operation": {
"enum": [
"list",
"get",
"actions",
"amendments",
"cosponsors",
"committees",
"subjects",
"summaries",
"text",
"titles",
"related",
"content"
],
"type": "string",
"description": "Which data to retrieve."
},
"billNumber": {
"anyOf": [
{
"type": "integer",
"maximum": 9007199254740991,
"description": "Positive integer form.",
"exclusiveMinimum": 0
},
{
"type": "string",
"pattern": "^0*[1-9]\\d*$",
"description": "Digit-string form, as list rows carry it."
}
],
"description": "Bill number. Required for get and sub-resource operations. Accepts the digit-string form list rows carry (e.g. \"9479\") as well as a number."
},
"toDateTime": {
"type": "string",
"description": "End of date range filter (ISO 8601). Same field semantics as fromDateTime."
},
"versionCode": {
"type": "string",
"description": "Which summary version 'summaries' returns — the versionCode a summary row carries ('00' introduced, '49' public law). Selection runs over the bill's whole summary list, which Congress.gov publishes no filter for, and limit/offset then page the matching rows. Omit to return every version. Ignored by other operations."
},
"fromDateTime": {
"type": "string",
"description": "Start of date range filter (ISO 8601). Filters by the bill's update date — when Congress.gov last touched the record — not by the bill's latest legislative action."
},
"characterLimit": {
"type": "integer",
"default": 25000,
"maximum": 100000,
"minimum": 1,
"description": "Maximum characters to return (1-100000) — for the document window on 'content', and for each row's summary text on 'summaries'. Legislative documents run past a million characters and an enacted bill's summary past two hundred thousand, so either takes several windows."
},
"characterOffset": {
"type": "integer",
"default": 0,
"maximum": 9007199254740991,
"minimum": 0,
"description": "First character to return, 0-based — of the document on 'content', and of every returned row's summary text on 'summaries'. Offsets are exact and are never snapped to a section or paragraph break, so feeding back the response's nextOffset (or a summary row's textNextOffset) walks the whole text with every character returned exactly once."
},
"textVersionIndex": {
"type": "integer",
"default": 0,
"maximum": 9007199254740991,
"minimum": 0,
"description": "Which text version 'content' reads, 0-based against the same order 'text' returns — 0 is the most recent version. Ignored by other operations."
}
},
"additionalProperties": false
}