# Jurisdictional

> Jurisdictional is an open data platform that builds a comprehensive, structured org chart of U.S. government.
> It maps every jurisdiction, agency, governing body, position, and public official — from federal to local — and makes this data freely available as structured JSON.

The core concept is **Juricode**: given any U.S. address or coordinates, Juricode identifies every layer of government that governs that location — federal, state, congressional district, county, city, school district, and more.
Each jurisdiction has geographic boundaries (PostGIS/TIGER), and a Juricode query uses `ST_Intersects` to find all jurisdictions containing a point.

Key entities in the data model:
- **Jurisdictions** — Geographic boundaries with levels: federal, state, county, municipal, special district
- **Agencies** — Government departments and organizations within jurisdictions
- **Bodies** — Legislative bodies, councils, commissions, and governing boards
- **Positions** — Elected offices, appointments, and government roles
- **People** — Public officials and elected representatives holding positions (deduplicated across bodies via tenures)
- **Services** — Permits, licenses, benefits, and public services offered by agencies
- **Domains** — .gov domain registrations linked to jurisdictions and agencies (sourced from CISA dotgov registry)

Data sources include the Census TIGER/Line boundary files, the CISA .gov registry, data.gov datasets, and community contributions.
All gathered data is published as structured JSON in a public GitHub repository.

## API

- [Juricode by Address](https://jurisdictional.org/api/v1/juricode?address=300+Hemlock+St+Vacaville+CA): Geocode an address and return all governing jurisdictions
- [Juricode by Coordinates](https://jurisdictional.org/api/v1/juricode?lat=38.35&lng=-121.97): Skip geocoding, go straight to spatial lookup (faster, more reliable)
- [Jurisdictions List](https://jurisdictional.org/api/v1/jurisdictions): Browse all jurisdictions with pagination
- [Jurisdiction Detail](https://jurisdictional.org/api/v1/jurisdictions/:id): Get a single jurisdiction with agencies and boundaries
- [Agencies List](https://jurisdictional.org/api/v1/agencies?jurisdiction_id=70118): List agencies for a jurisdiction
- [Agency Detail](https://jurisdictional.org/api/v1/agencies/:id?include=bodies,services): Get a single agency with related bodies and services
- [Nearby Search](https://jurisdictional.org/api/v1/nearby?lat=38.35&lng=-121.97&radius=5000): Find agencies and services within a radius
- [At Point](https://jurisdictional.org/api/v1/jurisdictions/at_point?lat=38.35&lng=-121.97): Find jurisdictions containing a lat/lng point
- [MCP Tools](https://jurisdictional.org/api/mcp/tools): Model Context Protocol endpoint for AI tool use
- [OAuth Discovery](https://jurisdictional.org/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server): RFC 8414 metadata for token endpoints

## MCP (Model Context Protocol)

Jurisdictional exposes an MCP server at `https://jurisdictional.org/api/mcp/message` (JSON-RPC 2.0).

**Read tools** — no auth required:
- `set_location` — set user location by address or lat/lng, returns juricode (jurisdiction stack)
- `explore` — search civic data with jurisdiction scoping and topic filtering
- `search_jurisdictions`, `get_jurisdiction`, `find_jurisdictions_at_point` — jurisdiction queries
- `search_agencies`, `get_agency`, `find_agencies` — agency queries
- `search_services`, `get_service`, `find_services` — service queries
- `search_people`, `get_person` — public officials
- `search_bodies`, `get_body` — governing bodies

**Write tools** — require `Authorization: Bearer <token>` header:
- `propose_change` — propose a field update to a civic entity
- `create_entity` — create a new agency, body, service, position, or person
- `get_change_status` — check status of proposed changes
- `submit_sourcing_result` — submit results for a sourcing task
- `research_entity` — research missing fields for an entity via LLM-powered web scraping
- `gather` — fetch a government web page via headless Chrome (returns HTML + screenshot). Allowed domains: .gov, .mil, granicus.com, legistar.com, wikipedia.org

To get a token: log in at https://jurisdictional.org and visit /auth/cli or Settings → API Tokens.
Set `JURISDICTIONAL_TOKEN` in your environment, then pass it as `Authorization: Bearer $JURISDICTIONAL_TOKEN`.

Example (propose a change):
```json
{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "propose_change",
    "arguments": {
      "entity_type": "agency",
      "entity_id": 12345,
      "field_name": "website",
      "new_value": "https://example.gov",
      "source_url": "https://example.gov/about"
    }
  }
}
```

## Skill

The [jurisdictional-skill](https://github.com/jurisdictional/jurisdictional-skill) is a Claude Code skill for civic data gathering.
Install: `/mcp add-json jurisdictional '{"type":"url","url":"https://jurisdictional.org/api/mcp/message"}'`
Usage: `/gather 300 Hemlock St, Vacaville, CA`
Flow: set location → explore gaps → research government websites → propose changes

## Pages

- [Juricode Demo](https://jurisdictional.org/juricode): Interactive 3D visualization — enter an address, see stacked jurisdiction layers
- [Map](https://jurisdictional.org/map): Full-screen map of U.S. with state boundaries and juricode search
- [Jurisdictions](https://jurisdictional.org/jurisdictions): Browse all jurisdictions
- [Agencies](https://jurisdictional.org/agencies): Browse government agencies
- [Bodies](https://jurisdictional.org/bodies): Browse governing bodies
- [Positions](https://jurisdictional.org/positions): Browse government positions
- [People](https://jurisdictional.org/people): Browse public officials (with provenance and change history)
- [Services](https://jurisdictional.org/services): Browse public services
- [Spatial Search](https://jurisdictional.org/search): Location-based search for agencies and services

## Data

- [Jurisdictional Data Repo](https://github.com/jurisdictional/jurisdictional-data): Structured JSON files for all jurisdictions, agencies, and officials
- [Source Code](https://github.com/jurisdictional/jurisdictional): Phoenix/Elixir application source
- [Skill Source](https://github.com/jurisdictional/jurisdictional-skill): Claude Code skill for civic data gathering

## Ecosystem

- **jurisdictional.org** — data platform, API, rules engine
- **civic.bot** — conversational widget for exploring civic data (embeddable)
- **gather.jurisdictional.org** — headless browser service for fetching .gov pages
- **jurisdictional-data** — structured JSON data repository on GitHub
- **jurisdictional-skill** — Claude Code skill for data gathering and contribution
- **ogenda** — open agenda management platform (boards, meetings, minutes, video)