Federal Register

The Federal Register (FR) is the daily journal of the United States government, publishing federal agency rules, proposed rules, notices, and presidential documents. Unlike the U.S. Code and eCFR, which are organized by title, the Federal Register is organized by date and document number.

Document Types

The Federal Register publishes four types of documents:

Type	CLI Value	Description
Rule	`rule`	Final rules and regulations
Proposed Rule	`proposed_rule`	Notices of proposed rulemaking (NPRMs)
Notice	`notice`	Agency notices and announcements
Presidential Document	`presidential_document`	Executive orders, memoranda, proclamations

Download

Download FR documents with download-fr. Unlike USC and eCFR, FR downloads are date-based rather than title-based.

Download recent documents:

lexbuild download-fr --recent 30

Download a date range:

lexbuild download-fr --from 2026-01-01 --to 2026-03-31

Download a single document by its document number:

lexbuild download-fr --document 2026-06029

Filter by document type:

lexbuild download-fr --recent 30 --types rule
lexbuild download-fr --from 2026-01-01 --types rule,proposed_rule

Download Sources

Two download sources are available:

Source	Description
`fr-api` (default)	Per-document XML + JSON metadata from FederalRegister.gov API
`govinfo`	Bulk daily-issue XML from govinfo.gov (faster for historical backfill)

# Default: per-document from FederalRegister.gov API
lexbuild download-fr --from 2026-01-01

# Bulk daily issues from govinfo (better for large historical ranges)
lexbuild download-fr --source govinfo --from 2000-01-01 --to 2025-12-31

Each document downloaded from the FR API includes both an XML file (full text) and a JSON file (API metadata). Files are saved to ./downloads/fr/ organized by year and month.

Download Options

Flag	Description
`--from <YYYY-MM-DD>`	Start date (inclusive)
`--to <YYYY-MM-DD>`	End date (inclusive, defaults to today)
`--recent <days>`	Download the last N days
`--document <number>`	Download a single document by number
`--types <types>`	Filter by document type (comma-separated)
`--limit <n>`	Maximum number of documents (FR API only)
`--concurrency <n>`	Number of concurrent downloads (default: 10)

Convert

Convert downloaded XML files to Markdown with convert-fr.

Convert all downloaded documents:

lexbuild convert-fr --all

Convert documents within a date range:

lexbuild convert-fr --from 2026-01-01 --to 2026-03-31

Filter by document type during conversion:

lexbuild convert-fr --all --types rule

Convert a single XML file by path:

lexbuild convert-fr ./downloads/fr/2026/03/2026-06029.xml

[!NOTE] FR documents are atomic — there is no granularity option. Each document produces a single .md file.

Enrich (govinfo bulk only)

The enrich-fr command patches YAML frontmatter in existing .md files with rich metadata from the FederalRegister.gov API. This command is only needed for documents downloaded from govinfo bulk (--source govinfo), which provides XML only without the JSON metadata sidecar.

[!NOTE] When using the default fr-api download source, the enrich-fr step is not needed. The fr-api source downloads both XML and JSON for each document, and the converter automatically uses the JSON sidecar to populate rich frontmatter fields (agencies, CFR references, docket IDs, citations, etc.).

lexbuild enrich-fr --from 2000-01-01
lexbuild enrich-fr --recent 30

Force re-enrichment of files that have already been enriched:

lexbuild enrich-fr --from 2020-01-01 --force

The enrich step does not re-parse XML or re-render Markdown. It only fetches metadata from the API and updates the YAML frontmatter block. Files that already contain an fr_citation field are skipped unless --force is used.

Full Pipeline

Using the FR API (default, recommended)

The default fr-api source downloads both XML and JSON per document, so the pipeline is two steps:

# 1. Download XML + JSON metadata
lexbuild download-fr --from 2026-01-01

# 2. Convert XML to Markdown (JSON sidecar used automatically)
lexbuild convert-fr --all

Using govinfo bulk (historical backfill)

The govinfo bulk source downloads XML only. Use enrich-fr afterward to add API metadata:

# 1. Download bulk daily-issue XML
lexbuild download-fr --source govinfo --from 2000-01-01 --to 2025-12-31

# 2. Convert XML to Markdown
lexbuild convert-fr --all

# 3. Enrich frontmatter with API metadata
lexbuild enrich-fr --from 2000-01-01

Output Structure

FR output is organized by year and month:

output/fr/
  2026/
    01/
      2026-00123.md
      2026-00456.md
    02/
      2026-01234.md
      ...
    03/
      2026-06029.md
      ...

Each document number is unique and corresponds to a single Markdown file. There are no _meta.json or README.md sidecar files for FR output.