> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://vaquill.ai/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Bulk and SQL access

> Query the whole US primary-law corpus as a database. 229 Parquet files in an object store, readable in place over HTTPS with DuckDB or loaded into Postgres, plus direct access to the vector index

The API answers one question at a time. When you need the corpus itself, take it.

Every dated snapshot ships as Parquet in a public object store. You can query it
where it sits, load it into your own warehouse, or pull the whole thing down and
never call us again.

```sql theme={"theme":"github-dark"}
-- Runs as-is. No key, no download, no signup.
INSTALL httpfs; LOAD httpfs;

SELECT citation, section_title, word_count
FROM read_parquet('https://oss-data-us.vaquill.ai/v2026.08/us_ak_constitutions.parquet')
WHERE section_title ILIKE '%search%';
```

<Note>
  That query reads a remote Parquet file over HTTPS and returns in well under a
  second. The object store serves range requests, so DuckDB fetches only the
  column chunks it needs rather than the file.
</Note>

## What ships

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="229 Parquet files" icon="file-code">
    One file per jurisdiction and corpus, so you can take only the slice you
    need: `us_ak_constitutions.parquet`, `us_tx_statutes.parquet`, and so on.
  </Card>

  <Card title="One combined tarball" icon="box-archive">
    `open-us-law-v2026.08-parquet.tar`, about 4.09 GB, when you would rather
    fetch once and unpack locally.
  </Card>

  <Card title="A manifest with checksums" icon="fingerprint">
    `index.json` lists every file with its byte size, SHA-256 and URL, so you
    can verify an unattended sync.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Dated snapshots" icon="calendar">
    Versions are immutable. Pin `v2026.08` and your results stay reproducible
    when the next snapshot lands.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

| Resource         | URL                                                                        |
| ---------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Manifest         | `https://oss-data-us.vaquill.ai/index.json`                                |
| Browsable index  | `https://oss-data-us.vaquill.ai/index.html`                                |
| Combined tarball | `https://oss-data-us.vaquill.ai/v2026.08/open-us-law-v2026.08-parquet.tar` |
| Canonical mirror | [Hugging Face](https://huggingface.co/datasets/vaquill/open-us-law)        |
| Ingestion source | [GitHub](https://github.com/Vaquill-AI/open-us-law)                        |

## Schema

Every Parquet file carries the same 24 columns.

| Column                   | Type    | What it holds                                                                            |
| ------------------------ | ------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `act_id`                 | VARCHAR | Stable identifier for the provision. See [Section IDs](/docs/api-guide/concepts/section-ids). |
| `citation`               | VARCHAR | Full citation                                                                            |
| `citation_short`         | VARCHAR | Short form                                                                               |
| `state`                  | VARCHAR | Two-letter code, null for federal                                                        |
| `jurisdiction`           | VARCHAR | Jurisdiction name                                                                        |
| `document_type`          | VARCHAR | Corpus type. See [Corpus types](/docs/api-guide/concepts/corpus-types).                       |
| `title_number`           | VARCHAR | Title or code number                                                                     |
| `title_name`             | VARCHAR | Title or code name                                                                       |
| `chapter`                | VARCHAR | Chapter number                                                                           |
| `chapter_name`           | VARCHAR | Chapter name                                                                             |
| `section_number`         | VARCHAR | Section number                                                                           |
| `section_title`          | VARCHAR | Section heading                                                                          |
| `breadcrumb`             | VARCHAR | Full hierarchy path                                                                      |
| `display_path`           | VARCHAR | Human-readable path                                                                      |
| `act_status`             | VARCHAR | `in_force`, `repealed`, `reserved`, and related states                                   |
| `text`                   | VARCHAR | The provision text                                                                       |
| `word_count`             | BIGINT  | Words in `text`                                                                          |
| `source_url`             | VARCHAR | The official publisher page this came from                                               |
| `last_amended_year`      | BIGINT  | Most recent amendment year                                                               |
| `subsection_count`       | BIGINT  | Subsections parsed                                                                       |
| `cross_references_usc`   | VARCHAR | US Code sections this provision cites                                                    |
| `cross_references_cfr`   | VARCHAR | CFR sections this provision cites                                                        |
| `public_laws_referenced` | VARCHAR | Public laws this provision cites                                                         |
| `year`                   | BIGINT  | Snapshot year                                                                            |

<Note>
  This is the bulk schema. The REST API returns a richer object with
  amendment history, prior effective dates and format mirrors. See
  [Response fields](/docs/api-guide/concepts/response-fields).
</Note>

## Load it into your own database

<CodeGroup>
  ```sql DuckDB theme={"theme":"github-dark"}
  -- Whole corpus into a local database file. Globs are not supported over plain
  -- HTTPS, so read the file list out of the manifest and pass it as an array.
  INSTALL httpfs; LOAD httpfs; INSTALL json; LOAD json;

  CREATE TABLE law AS
  SELECT * FROM read_parquet(
    (SELECT list(f.url)
     FROM (SELECT unnest(files) AS f
           FROM read_json_auto('https://oss-data-us.vaquill.ai/index.json'))
     WHERE f.file LIKE '%.parquet')
  );
  ```

  ```sql Postgres theme={"theme":"github-dark"}
  -- After downloading the tarball and unpacking
  CREATE TABLE law (
    act_id text PRIMARY KEY, citation text, citation_short text,
    state text, jurisdiction text, document_type text,
    title_number text, title_name text, chapter text, chapter_name text,
    section_number text, section_title text, breadcrumb text, display_path text,
    act_status text, text text, word_count bigint, source_url text,
    last_amended_year bigint, subsection_count bigint,
    cross_references_usc text, cross_references_cfr text,
    public_laws_referenced text, year bigint
  );
  -- then COPY from a Parquet-aware loader, or convert with DuckDB first
  ```

  ```bash Verify a sync theme={"theme":"github-dark"}
  curl -s https://oss-data-us.vaquill.ai/index.json \
    | jq -r '.files[] | select(.file|endswith(".parquet")) | "\(.sha256)  \(.file)"' \
    > SHA256SUMS
  shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS
  ```
</CodeGroup>

## The vector index

The corpus is also held as an embedded, chunked retrieval index. Direct access
to that index is available under a data licence, which matters if you would
rather not spend the compute re-embedding several million sections to get back
to where we already are.

Talk to us at [contact@vaquill.ai](mailto:contact@vaquill.ai) about scope.

## What this is not

<Warning>
  This is not a hosted replica we operate for you. There is no connection string
  to rent. You take a copy and run it on your own infrastructure, which is the
  point: the copy is yours, and it keeps working if we do not.
</Warning>

## Licence

The legal text is public domain under the government edicts doctrine
(*Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org*, 590 U.S. 255 (2020)). Our compilation, the
schema, citations, hierarchy and cross-references, is CC BY 4.0. The ingestion
pipelines are Apache-2.0.

Attribute as "Open US Law by Vaquill AI, CC BY 4.0". Attribution can be waived
under a commercial licence.

<Warning>
  **The free snapshot and a paid bulk licence are not the same thing.** Anything
  you take from the public object store is CC BY 4.0 and irrevocably yours,
  on every version we have published.

  A paid bulk delivery, where we ship you the corpus under a separate signed
  agreement rather than answering calls, is different: on termination or expiry
  you delete stored copies of our compilation within 30 days. There the corpus
  is the deliverable, so open-ended retention would let one period buy it
  outright. See [Rights and licensing](/docs/api-guide/rights-and-licensing).
</Warning>