PubLedge
Open recordkeeping protocol for fact-specific written interpretations between two parties — Joint Interpretation Agreements (JIAs), Regulatory Mitigation Agreements (RMAs), no-action letters, private letter rulings, advisory opinions, and analogous civic instruments (HOA decision logs, co-op governance records, flying-club asset agreements, and the like).
Plain markdown with structured frontmatter. SHA-256 manifest checks provide source-to-manifest consistency. Bound to the Semantic Arts gist upper ontology so records from different authorities can be queried together.
Public and maintained. Protocol specification v0.2.0; stable MCP server v0.2.1. The MCP server is dual-era: MCP spec 2026-07-28 stateless core plus the legacy 2024-11-05 handshake. Standalone product expansion is parked pending a concrete legal-graph or adopter demand signal.
Who this is for
Regulators, regulated parties, and civic bodies that issue or rely on fact-specific written interpretations and need them recorded in a portable, queryable form.
What problem it solves
Fact-specific interpretations (no-action letters, private rulings, JIAs, HOA decisions) live in scattered, unstructured records that can't be compared across authorities. PubLedge is an open protocol that records them as manifest-checked markdown bound to a shared ontology.
Canonical URL
https://publedge.org/
Part of the PAICE legal graph
PubLedge is one component of the PAICE legal graph (with EveryAILaw, AI Incident Law, and Obligation First). It is intentionally open: code under Apache 2.0, protocol and content under CC BY 4.0, commercial use permitted with attribution. The open siblings are funded by EveryAILaw Pro, the graph's single restricted layer; openness here is a deliberate PBC-charter choice. The canonical model is in the PAICE Foundation INTENT.
What this repo is
Three things in one place:
- The protocol — the PROTOCOL.md specification and the PRIOR-ART.md survey that motivates it.
- Utah-shaped reference content — 5 JIA/RMA templates anchored to Utah's AI Policy Act (Utah Code §13-72a) and GenAI safe-harbor (§13-75-104), plus 18 demonstration instruments under
data/examples/instruments/ spanning 8 authorities (Utah OAIP, Utah Legislature, Colorado Legislature, SEC, CFPB, IRS Chief Counsel, IRS TEGE, CFTC) and 7 instrument types (JIA, RMA, no-action letter, advisory opinion, private letter ruling, interpretive letter, statute). 35 first-class obligation records under data/examples/obligations/ are mapped to the instruments via data/examples/mapping/index.yml; legal lifecycle is tracked separately from editorial maturity.
- The published site — rendered HTML under
docs/, served by GitHub Pages from main /docs. Regenerate with node scripts/build.js && node scripts/build-extras.js before committing; CI fails if docs/ drifts from sources.
Machine-readable endpoints
Every record and index is published in parallel HTML + structured form so agents can walk the registry without scraping:
| Surface | Shape |
|---|
/ | WebSite + Organization + DataCatalog JSON-LD (@graph); links to every dataset distribution |
/us/{jurisdiction}/{authority}/{type}/{instance}/ | Canonical hierarchical URL per record; inline Schema.org LegalDocument JSON-LD; PDF + OCR text co-located |
/us/{jurisdiction}/{authority}/{type}/{instance}/record.json | Same record as JSON; shape validated by /schema/json/record.schema.json; includes authority_response annotations when present |
/instruments.html, /obligations.html, /authorities.html | ItemList JSON-LD; human-readable filter + sort |
/matrix.html | Dataset JSON-LD + coverage matrix; DataDownload distribution at /api/v1/matrix.json |
/definitions/ | DefinedTermSet with instrument types + statuses as DefinedTerms |
/api/v1/*.json | Machine manifests: containers, primaries, authorities, mappings, matrix, upcoming, recently-changed |
/api/v1/of/*.json | Obligation-First binding records for authorities, instruments, terms, obligations, and administrative issuance determinations |
/calendar.ics | Enforcement calendar (iCal) |
/feed.xml, /atom.xml, /feed.json | RSS 2.0, Atom 1.0, JSON Feed 1.1 |
/sitemap.xml | Sitemap index → per-section sitemaps (records, authorities, statutes, reference, templates, bridges, meta) |
/llms.txt, /agents.json | Agent-discovery briefing + capabilities |
/.well-known/mcp.json | Installable MCP server discovery for npx -y publedge |
/robots.txt | Explicit allow for 17 AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, etc.) |
mcp-server.js | MCP server exposing 13 read-only tools: list_<legal-instruments> (with jurisdiction/authority/type/status filters), get_<legal-instrument>, list_obligations, get_obligation, list_authorities, get_authority, search, search_obligations, get_matrix, get_mappings, fetch_by_url, get_upcoming, get_recently_changed |
What this repo is not
- Not a regulator. PubLedge does not issue rulings.
- Not a law firm. Templates here are prior art, not legal advice.
- Not a CMS. Editors edit markdown in git.
- Not a blockchain. The integrity layer is plain SHA-256 over plain files.
Quickstart
git clone https://github.com/snapsynapse/publedge.git
cd publedge
./scripts/validate-hashes.sh
node scripts/validate.js
node scripts/build.js
node scripts/build-extras.js
To validate the Obligation-First binding, check out snapsynapse/obligation-first beside this repo or set OBLIGATION_FIRST_DIR, then run npm run validate:of.
After intentional content edits, refresh hashes:
./scripts/validate-hashes.sh --update
CI runs all of the above, plus a pa11y-ci WCAG 2.1 AA pass across every URL in the sitemap, on every push and pull request.
Use PubLedge in five minutes
Choose the surface that matches the job:
- Browse the instrument registry or open a canonical record such as the SEC CorpFin no-action letter.
- Query an index without scraping HTML:
curl -sS https://publedge.org/api/v1/containers.json | jq '.[0]'
- Fetch a record-shaped JSON representation by appending
record.json to its canonical record URL:
curl -sS https://publedge.org/us/federal/sec-corpfin/nal/2025-001/record.json | jq '.id, .status'
- Add the read-only MCP server to any stdio-capable client:
{
"mcpServers": {
"publedge": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "publedge"]
}
}
}
- Use
search to discover records and fetch_by_url when you already have a canonical PubLedge URL. The complete endpoint and capability inventories are at api/v1/index.json and agents.json.
Canonical markdown under data/examples/ is the maintained source. Published HTML, API indexes, and each record.json are generated representations and should not be edited directly.
Repository layout
| Path | Purpose |
|---|
PROTOCOL.md | The PubLedge specification |
INTENT.md | Authoritative repository disposition, active work, and revisit triggers |
PRIOR-ART.md | Survey of analogous instrument programs |
DEFINITIONS.md | Canonical vocabulary (status values, instrument types, obligation kinds) |
MANIFEST.yaml | SHA-256 hashes for every canonical file |
_templates/jia/, _templates/rma/ | Fill-in templates with {{variable}} placeholders |
data/examples/instruments/ | 18 demonstration instruments; filename = stable id (e.g. us-ut-oaip-rma-2025-001.md) |
data/examples/authorities/ | Authority records for each issuing body |
data/examples/obligations/ | Obligation definitions linked from instruments |
data/examples/mapping/ | Obligation-to-statute mapping index |
about/ | Hand-crafted /about/ source page (copied verbatim into docs/) |
reference/ | Hand-crafted reference HTML (prior-art, disclaimer, vocabulary) |
schema/json/ | JSON Schemas + JSON-LD context |
vendor/gist/ | Pinned snapshot of the Semantic Arts gist core ontology |
scripts/ | Validators (validate.js, verify.js), build (build.js, build-extras.js), hash check |
_workshop/ | Site ontology workshop output (taxonomy, sitemap, content guide, roadmap) |
The _workshop/ directory documents the design decisions behind the layout above. Read _workshop/TAXONOMY.md, _workshop/SITEMAP.md, and _workshop/CONTENT-GUIDE.md before proposing structural changes.
Contributing an instrument
- Pick template under
_templates/jia/ or _templates/rma/.
- Replace every
{{variable_name}} with applicable values.
- Set
id to {jurisdiction}-{authority}-{type}-{YYYY-NNN} (e.g. us-ut-oaip-rma-2025-003). Filename must match: us-ut-oaip-rma-2025-003.md.
- Set legal
status: proposed and editorial_status: draft. Add parties under parties:.
- Place file under
data/examples/instruments/.
- Run
./scripts/validate-hashes.sh --update to refresh MANIFEST.yaml.
- Run
node scripts/build.js && node scripts/build-extras.js to verify site regenerates cleanly.
- Open a pull request.
See CONTRIBUTING.md for full conventions including obligation entries, source PDFs, and OCR workflow.
License
PubLedge is dual-licensed:
See LICENSE for the split. Vendored snapshots retain their upstream licenses; the pinned gist core ontology is CC-BY 4.0 (Semantic Arts). Full credits in ATTRIBUTION.md.
Built on
- Knowledge as Code — the four-role entity pattern (Authority / Container / Secondary / Primary) PubLedge inherits.
- gist (Semantic Arts) — open upper ontology bound to PubLedge entities.
- Every AI Law — preferred source for statute-anchor URLs in
statute_anchors[].
- skill-provenance — hash-mechanism pattern adapted for
validate-hashes.sh. PubLedge does not adopt the full skill-provenance protocol.
Status and roadmap
| Milestone | Status |
|---|
| Workshop, taxonomy, sitemap, content guide | done |
Protocol specification (PROTOCOL.md) | done |
Prior-art survey (PRIOR-ART.md) | done |
| Initial Utah templates (3 JIA, 2 RMA) | done |
First registry instance (us-ut-oaip-jia-2026-001) | done |
| Hash-pinned integrity + CI verification | done |
Discovery files (llms.txt, agents.json, feed.xml) | done |
MCP server (mcp-server.js) | done |
CLI validators (scripts/validate.js, scripts/verify.js) | done |
JSON Schemas + JSON-LD context (schema/json/) | done |
Unified site generator (build.js + build-extras.js) | done |
| Frontmatter spec v0.2 | done |
| 9 federal + Utah demonstration remaps | done |
| 4 Utah statutes as first-class instrument records | done |
Canonical URL architecture (/{country}/{jurisdiction}/{authority}/{type}/{YYYY-NNN}/) | done |
record.json per instrument (Schema.org LegalDocument JSON-LD) | done |
calendar.ics, api/v1/upcoming.json, api/v1/recently_changed.json | done |
Status vocabulary (9 values) + DEFINITIONS.md + /definitions/ page | done |
publedge-source-ingest skill for authored ingestion | done |
Disclaimer & Source Policy at /reference/disclaimer/ | done |
| Obligations + mapping curation pass (35 obligations, 16 mappings) | done |
| JSON-LD on top-level pages (home @graph, ItemList indexes, DefinedTermSet, Dataset) | done |
| Split sitemap index + 7 section sitemaps | done |
| JSON Feed 1.1 + Atom 1.0 feeds alongside RSS | done |
/schema/json/record.schema.json (JSON Schema draft 2020-12) | done |
| Extended MCP tool surface (13 tools; filters, URL-based fetch, upcoming, recently-changed) | done |
Explicit AI-crawler allowlist in robots.txt | done |
| Authority response protocol field, rendering, schema, and validation | done |
Agent-readiness + a11y audit artifacts in audits/ + .a11y-audit/ | done |
| Axe-core WCAG 2.1 AA remediation (4 rules, 70 instances → 0) | done |
| Private snapshot for pre-release review | sent |
| Lawyer review (SLC attorney) | pending; demand-triggered |
| repo-polish | done |
| Repository public | done |
| Obligation-First v0.4.x naming profile | done |
| promo-orchestrator + public announcement | parked |
| Browser-side registry browser + comparison tooling | parked |
| Branch-and-strip to reusable protocol template | parked |
See ROADMAP.md for phasing and _workshop/ROADMAP.md for the original workshop plan.