> ## 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.
# Agency guidance sources
> The 51 named federal sources behind corpusType=AGENCY_GUIDANCE, each independently filterable with source
Sub-regulatory federal guidance: what an agency says its own rules mean, short of a
regulation. **51 named sources across 26 agencies, 81,451 documents.**
All 51 sit behind the single `corpusType=AGENCY_GUIDANCE` token. Narrow to one with
`source`. A new source lands as a registry entry, not a new API token.
```json theme={"theme":"github-dark"}
{ "query": "tip credit", "corpusType": "AGENCY_GUIDANCE", "source": "whd_foh" }
```
`GET /us/statutes/coverage` names every source in its `AGENCY_GUIDANCE` legend, and an
invalid `source` returns the full list with each code's name. Treat those two as
authoritative over this page.
## The registry
Grouped by agency. Documents are citable items (`act_id`), measured per source on 2026-09-06.
Sources marked **\[note]** have a caveat in [Source notes](#source-notes) that changes how you
should read their results.
**This column sums to 92,606, and `GET /us/statutes/coverage` reports 81,451 for
`AGENCY_GUIDANCE`.** The endpoint is authoritative and the headline above uses its figure.
The 11,155 difference is a gap between what the per-source counts measured and what the
served corpus answers with today, so read any single row as an upper bound until the two
agree. Take the endpoint over this page for a total and for a row.
| Source | `source` | Documents | Coverage |
| ------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------ | --------: | ------------------------------- |
| SSA Rulings | `ssa_ruling` | 2,233 | - |
| IRS Revenue Procedures | `irs_rev_proc` | 378 | 2015-present |
| IRS Revenue Rulings | `irs_rev_rul` | 247 | 2015-present |
| IRS Notices | `irs_notice` | 762 | 2015-present |
| IRS Announcements | `irs_announcement` | 83 | 2015-present |
| IRS Written Determinations **\[note]** | `irs_written_determination` | 45,358 | 1999-2026 |
| Internal Revenue Manual **\[note]** | `irs_irm` | 1,777 | Current |
| DOJ and FTC Merger Guidelines | `merger_guidelines` | 1 | 2023 |
| DOJ Antitrust Leniency Policy | `doj_leniency` | 1 | - |
| DOJ Antitrust Business Review Letters **\[note]** | `doj_business_review` | 215 | 1991-2021 |
| DOJ Justice Manual | `doj_justice_manual` | 1,548 | - |
| FTC Advisory Opinions **\[note]** | `ftc_advisory_opinion` | 430 | 1982-2024 |
| FTC Policy Statements **\[note]** | `ftc_policy_statement` | 59 | 1967-2026 |
| Copyright Office Circulars | `copyright_circular` | 62 | - |
| Copyright Office Compendium (Third) **\[note]** | `copyright_compendium` | 5,920 | 3 editions, 2014-2021 |
| CMS Medicare Internet-Only Manuals **\[note]** | `cms_iom` | 11,072 | 2000-2026 |
| USCIS Policy Manual | `uscis_policy_manual` | 456 | 12 volumes |
| USPTO MPEP | `mpep` | 2,727 | 29 chapters |
| USPTO TMEP | `tmep` | 2,114 | 19 chapters |
| DOL WHD Opinion and Ruling Letters **\[note]** | `whd_opinion_letter` | 594 | 1993-2026 |
| DOL WHD Field Operations Handbook **\[note]** | `whd_foh` | 1,500 | 1966-2025 |
| EEOC Enforcement and Policy Guidance **\[note]** | `eeoc_guidance` | 179 | 1970-2024 |
| DFARS Procurement Guidance (PGI) | `dfars_pgi` | 397 | 47 Parts |
| NLRB General Counsel Memoranda | `nlrb_gc_memo` | 306 | 1973-present |
| NLRB Division of Advice Memoranda | `nlrb_advice_memo` | 340 | Rolling 10-year window |
| CFTC Staff Letters | `cftc_staff_letter` | 945 | 2008-present |
| Federal Reserve SR and CA Letters | `frb_sr_letter` | 342 | Since 1990 |
| OCC Bulletins | `occ_bulletin` | 612 | Since 1994 |
| OCC Interpretive Letters | `occ_interpretive_letter` | 449 | 1996-present |
| FDIC Financial Institution Letters | `fdic_fil` | 2,326 | Since 1994 |
| FinCEN Administrative Rulings | `fincen_ruling` | 85 | Since 1988 |
| FinCEN Guidance | `fincen_guidance` | 128 | - |
| FinCEN BOI FAQs **\[note]** | `fincen_boi_faq` | 122 | Issued 2023-2024 |
| FinCEN BOI Rulemaking Q\&As **\[note]** | `fincen_boi_rule_qa` | 22 | 2025-2026 |
| FinCEN Small Entity Compliance Guide **\[note]** | `fincen_boi_compliance_guide` | 1 | v1.4, March 2025 |
| FinCEN AML Act 2020 material | `fincen_amla_material` | 13 | 2021-2026 |
| OFAC Sanctions FAQs **\[note]** | `ofac_faq` | 1,350 | Revisions since 2023-03-22 |
| CPSC OGC Advisory Opinions | `cpsc_advisory_opinion` | 305 | 1973-2012, archive |
| CPSC Small Entity Compliance Guides | `cpsc_secg` | 34 | - |
| BIS Advisory Opinions (EAR) | `bis_advisory_opinion` | 39 | 2003-2023 |
| DDTC Commodity Jurisdiction Determinations | `ddtc_commodity_jurisdiction` | 5,903 | 2010-present |
| DDTC Policy Guidance | `ddtc_guidance` | 7 | - |
| FCC Declaratory Rulings | `fcc_declaratory_ruling` | 173 | - |
| FERC Policy Statements **\[note]** | `ferc_policy_statement` | 90 | Since 1996 |
| DOE Appliance Standards Guidance | `doe_appliance_guidance` | 60 | Draft guidance excluded |
| HHS OCR HIPAA Guidance | `hhs_ocr_hipaa_guidance` | 59 | - |
| HHS OCR HIPAA FAQs | `hhs_ocr_hipaa_faq` | 444 | Deduplicated across topic pages |
| HHS OCR Resolution Agreements and CMPs | `hhs_ocr_resolution_agreement` | 217 | - |
| CFPB Consumer Financial Protection Circulars | `cfpb_circular` | 16 | Since 2022 |
| CFPB Supervisory Guidance | `cfpb_supervisory_guidance` | 95 | Since 2011 |
| Vaquill-synthesized reference figures **\[note]** | `administrative_guidance` | 10 | Current |
## Citation forms
| `source` | Cite as |
| --------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `irs_irm` | `IRM 4.10.3` |
| `irs_written_determination` | `PLR 200007023`, `TAM 200011005`, `CCA 199930030` |
| `doj_justice_manual` | `Justice Manual § 9-27.420` |
| `copyright_compendium` | `Compendium (Third) § 313.2` |
| `cms_iom` | `Medicare Claims Processing Manual (Pub. 100-04), Ch. 12 § 20.1` |
| `uscis_policy_manual` | `USCIS Policy Manual, Vol. 12, Pt. D, Ch. 3` |
| `mpep` / `tmep` | `MPEP § 2106` / `TMEP § 1207.01` |
| `whd_opinion_letter` | `WHD Opinion Letter FLSA2020-13` |
| `whd_foh` | `FOH 31c05` |
| `eeoc_guidance` | `EEOC-NVTA-2001-1` |
| `dfars_pgi` | `PGI 225.370` |
| `nlrb_gc_memo` | `NLRB General Counsel Memorandum GC 22-04` |
| `cftc_staff_letter` | `CFTC Letter No. 26-17` |
| `frb_sr_letter` | `SR 21-4 / CA 21-2` |
| `occ_interpretive_letter` | `OCC Interpretive Letter No. 1188` |
| `fincen_ruling` | `FinCEN Ruling FIN-2009-R001` |
| `fincen_boi_faq` | `FinCEN BOI FAQ C.2` |
| `ofac_faq` | `OFAC FAQ 401` |
| `cfpb_circular` | `Circular 2023-01` |
| `ferc_policy_statement` | `___ FERC ¶ _____` (bound-volume Reports form) |
| `doj_business_review` | `DOJ Antitrust Div. Business Review Letter No. 20-7` |
## Source notes
IRS Written Determinations under 26 U.S.C. § 6110: **28,641 Private Letter Rulings, 5,573 Chief
Counsel Advice memoranda, 5,482 Tax Exempt and Government Entities determination letters and 842
Technical Advice Memoranda**, plus 4,820 the IRS does not type on the document itself.
402,546 retrieval passages, and by document count the largest source in this token.
**Each is directed only to the taxpayer who requested it, and § 6110(k)(3) says it "may not be
used or cited as precedent".** That is not our caveat, it is the statute, and it is why every one
of the 45,358 carries `actStatus: "non_precedential"` rather than `in_force`. Read one as evidence
of how the Service analysed one taxpayer's facts, never as a rule of general application.
Coverage runs **1999-01-08 to 2026-09-04**, 28 distinct years, and is **45,358 of the 45,431
determinations the IRS lists, 99.84%**.
**9,873 of these were read by OCR rather than from a text layer**, because the IRS publishes them
as scans of signed paper. Those carry `extractionMethod: "ocr"` so you can tell which; the rest
carry `"text_layer"`. Two things follow from that and are worth knowing before you rely on the
text. The section symbol survives OCR less reliably than the words around it, so a passage may
read `section 501(c)(3)` where the page prints `§ 501(c)(3)`; search for either. And a stamped
control number in a letterhead can lose a digit, which is why the document's own `actId` and
`citation` are taken from the IRS index rather than from the scanned text.
**73 determinations are not served.** 56 are scans no OCR could read, 14 failed a legibility
check, and 3 are not PDFs at the publisher's end. They are a measured absence, not a silent gap.
The IRS's own instruction manual for its employees, and the largest source here at 121,234
retrieval passages. Every passage is labeled "IRS internal procedure" and `goodLawStatus` is
`unknown` on every section, because no IRS source states when an IRM section is superseded.
Do not read an IRM response timeframe as a statutory deadline.
Each section carries the Effective Date the IRS prints on it. 54 sections (3.0%) carry no
Manual Transmittal block and take their amendment year from per-subsection revision stamps.
IRM 2.4.19 is indexed by the IRS but served as an empty page, and is not ingested.
How Medicare runs day to day: Pub. 100-04 says what a provider may bill, 100-02 what Medicare
covers, 100-08 what a contractor reads before an audit. 26,153 retrieval passages.
**Not law.** Courts have repeatedly held that manual provisions are not binding substantive
rules; the binding requirements are in the Social Security Act and 42 C.F.R. Every passage says
so in `currencyNote` and `goodLawStatus` is `unknown`.
**98.4% of sections carry CMS's own `(Rev. N, Issued, Effective, Implementation)` stamp**,
spanning 2000 to 2026 across 27 distinct years.
Five of CMS's 25 publications hold nothing or almost nothing, and those are the publisher's
gaps rather than ours: 100-12, 100-13 and 100-23 publish no chapters at all, 100-21 is titled
Reserved, and 100-18 (Part D) is a two-page table of contents whose own text says several
chapters were never disseminated outside HPMS. Chapters are replaced in place and CMS publishes
no superseded editions, so `asOf` is not bounded for this corpus.
How the Wage and Hour Division instructs its own investigators to read the FLSA, FMLA, SCA,
DBRA, CCPA, MSPA and section 14(c), at the operational detail the regulations do not reach.
2,326 retrieval passages. It is the companion to `whd_opinion_letter`, which it cites and does
not contain.
**Not law**, and WHD says so: its own page states these pages "may not reflect current
legislation, regulations, significant court decisions" and that the Federal Register and the
CFR "remain the official resources". `goodLawStatus` is `unknown`.
Revision history arrives in three registers: all 22 chapters carry WHD's `Source: FOH revision
N, published DATE` stamp, 90 provisions (6.0%) carry a provision-level revision date, and 1,267
(84.5%) carry at least one dated row from WHD's pre-2016 revision tables.
Chapter numbering is **not contiguous** (10-16, 19-25, 30-33, 36, 39, 46, 64). The missing
numbers return 404 from WHD itself.
WHD's written answers to a named requester's fact-specific question: FLSA (417 letters), FMLA
(154), then SCA, DBRA, CCPA, MSPA, child labor and agriculture. 3,620 retrieval passages across
four publisher series: 363 Opinion letters, 211 Non-Opinion letters, 13 DBRA and SCA ruling
letters, and the 7 Administrator Interpretations that replaced opinion letters entirely between
2010 and 2017 and are the only documents covering that gap.
**Unusually for sub-regulatory guidance, WHD publishes a machine-readable withdrawal
apparatus**, so `actStatus` is read off DOL's own footnote table and disclaimer lines rather
than inferred: 561 `in_force`, 28 `withdrawn`, 3 `superseded`, 2 `vacated` by the
Administrative Review Board. Most withdrawals are the March 2, 2009 mass withdrawal, 17 of
which WHD re-issued in 2018 under new numbers.
A re-issued pair shares one PDF on dol.gov but is two documents with two numbers, two dates and
opposite status, so each is served under its own `act_id` and the predecessor stays retrievable
as withdrawn.
The publisher's index lists 596 records and **594 are served**: FLSA2009-1NA and FLSA2009-2NA
carry a truncated PDF path with no filename that 404s on dol.gov itself, so they are recorded
as fetch failures rather than invented. The numbering is intact otherwise, every FLSA year runs
1 to max with no gap and FMLA-1 to FMLA-113 is complete.
The Commission's own interpretation of the statutes it enforces, including Compliance Manual
sections. 4,990 retrieval passages. By authority cited: Title VII (98 documents), the ADA (92),
the Rehabilitation Act (70), the ADEA (45), GINA (32), the Equal Pay Act (27).
**The enumeration is EEOC's own sitemap** filtered to `/laws/guidance/`, which yields all 179
documents. EEOC's `/eeoc-guidance` hub renders only 56 of them with no pager, and those 56 are
a strict subset, so a hub crawl would ship a third of the corpus and report success.
**`act_id` is the URL slug, deliberately not EEOC's OLC control number**: 178 documents print a
control number and they hold only 177 distinct values, because `EEOC-NVTA-2016-3` is printed on
two unrelated documents. The number is carried as metadata instead.
`goodLawStatus` is read from EEOC's own banner rather than defaulted: 172 documents are
`in_force`, 6 `superseded`, 1 `rescinded`, each dead document carrying the Commission's own
sentence as evidence. **That banner is the only retirement record EEOC publishes.**
`/rescinded-guidance`, `/withdrawn-guidance` and `/laws/guidance/rescinded` all 404, so this is
a verdict about retirements EEOC announced on the document itself; guidance the Commission
quietly stopped relying on reads `in_force`.
Do not read the word "Rescinded" on EEOC's hub as a status. It appears 25 times there in the
Compliance Manual Section column and every one is a filing instruction about a neighboring
manual section ("Appears after Rescinded 604").
Federal-sector appellate decisions are **not** here: they are decided cases, they belong under
`corpusType=AGENCY_ADJUDICATION`, and they are reachable only through a search path
`robots.txt` disallows.
The Commission's and its staff's answers to conduct a requester proposes, under 16 C.F.R.
§§ 1.1-1.4, across the Franchise Rule, the Holder Rule, the Funeral Rule, the FCRA and
health-care antitrust. 3,926 retrieval passages. An advisory opinion binds only its requester
and decides no case, which is why it sits here and not under `AGENCY_ADJUDICATION`.
**206 of the 430 have no entry of their own in the FTC's listing.** The Commission's FCRA topic
pages index the staff letters answering each section of the Act, one letter under as many
sections as it answers, and each is served as its own citable document.
The Commission publishes no machine-readable withdrawal signal, so `goodLawStatus` is `unknown`
on every one. 11 documents carry no date the FTC prints.
Two documents are truncated on ftc.gov itself (`advisory-opinion-coffey-02-11-98` ends
mid-word) and two more (`informal-staff-advisory-opinion-97-2` and `-97-3`) are byte-identical
there, so one of those pages carries the wrong letter. Both are the publisher's defects, and
both are served as the Commission serves them rather than hidden.
The Commission's own statements of what Section 5 MEANS: the Policy Statement on Deception
(1983), on Unfairness (1980), the 2022 statement on the scope of unfair methods of competition,
and the FTC-DOJ antitrust and merger guidelines. 1,719 retrieval passages, `effective_date` on
100%. This is the standard the Commission's Part 3 orders apply.
The Commission's 868-page Compendium is deliberately excluded because it re-publishes material
already served under other `act_id`s. 6 further records exist as a citation only, with a title
and a date and no document, and are recorded as out of scope rather than served as empty.
`goodLawStatus` is `unknown`, same reason as the advisory opinions.
The administrative manual the Copyright Office applies to every registration and recordation,
section-addressable at its own `section NNN.N` numbering across 24 chapters. 2,455 current
sections; 5,920 across three editions (2014-12-22, 2017-09-29, 2021-01-28).
All three dated releases are stored separately and `asOf` resolves against the edition the
Office states was in force, so point-in-time here is the publisher's answer rather than a
reconstruction. Amendment history covers the 2021 release only (719 amended, 101 renumbered
sections); the Office publishes no change log for 2017 or 2014.
An `asOf` answer is the MANUAL in force on that date, not the LAW. The Office's own exception
for "an amendment to the regulations, intervening case law, or previously announced changes in
practice" is served verbatim on every section.
The Antitrust Division's statements of its enforcement intentions on proposed conduct under
28 C.F.R. § 50.6, each served as the response letter with the requesting party's own request
letter appended. 4,760 retrieval passages.
The Division publishes no machine-readable withdrawal signal, so `goodLawStatus` is `unknown`
on every letter and every passage says so. 215 of the 216 letters listed are served; the 216th
(97-16) is a broken link on the Division's own site.
OFAC's own interpretation of the sanctions regulations it administers at 31 C.F.R. chapter V,
across all 38 sanctions programs. 989 current FAQs plus 361 prior versions, 1,823 retrieval
passages.
**Prior versions are separate, citable documents** taken from OFAC's own FAQ Archive and served
`actStatus: "superseded"`, so `asOf` on a FAQ returns the text OFAC published on that date
rather than a reconstruction. 238 FAQs (24.1%) carry at least one observed revision; the
deepest is FAQ 999 with 12 versions.
**The revision trail starts 2023-03-22 and goes no further back.** OFAC migrated its FAQs to a
new website that day and stamped every then-active FAQ with the migration date rather than its
original publication date, so 860 version records carry it as `observedDate` with no
`effectiveDate`.
**OFAC has rescinded 279 FAQ numbers and publishes nothing for any of them**, so a rescinded
FAQ is absent rather than marked withdrawn. Sanctions lists (SDN, consolidated) and General
Licenses are not included; General License links are served as cross-references.
FERC's generally-applicable interpretive vehicle, 2,698 retrieval passages. Deliberately
narrower than the docket-based eLibrary universe of case-specific orders, which is not held.
Annually adjusted dollar thresholds that do not live in USC or CFR section text: the state and
local tax (SALT) cap, the Child Tax Credit, 401(k) limits, the Subchapter V debt limit. Each is
primary-sourced but assembled by us rather than published as a single agency document, which is
why it is named separately rather than folded in with the agency sources above.
**Corporate Transparency Act: the BOI sources are not all current, and FinCEN says so itself.**
On August 11, 2026 FinCEN issued a final rule that permanently narrowed BOI reporting. Entities
created in the United States and their beneficial owners are now exempt; only certain companies
formed under foreign law and registered to do business in a US State or tribal jurisdiction must
report, and they do not report BOI for US-person beneficial owners or company applicants.
`fincen_boi_faq` (issued 2023-2024) and `fincen_boi_compliance_guide` (v1.4, March 2025) both
predate that rule. We serve them as published, because they remain the authoritative FinCEN text
and much of it, such as the beneficial-owner and substantial-control definitions in FAQ category
D, is untouched by the scope change. Every passage carries FinCEN's own notice verbatim in
`currencyNote`, with `currencyYear: 2026`.
Disregard any statement in them that US companies or their beneficial owners must report BOI,
that BOI must be reported for US persons, that US persons must update or correct FinCEN ID
information, or that reports were due before April 25, 2025.
**For the current position use `fincen_boi_rule_qa`.** Its 12 final-rule Q\&As are current; its
10 interim-rule Q\&As carry `actStatus: "superseded"` and are excluded from good-law retrieval.
The other 13 federal corpora, with per-corpus scope limits.
Every `corpusType` token and how `source` combines with it.