Public government, court, statement, and market sources — each with a defined role in the index
Every source and the specific role it plays in building the index.
| Source | Type | Role in the index | Cadence | Access basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Federal Register API | Government publication | Threat detection (EOs, proclamations) + outcome resolution | Daily (incremental) | Public API |
| USTR FR notices (Section 301) | Government agency notice | Threat detection (Section 301 actions) | Daily (via Federal Register) | Public API |
| CNN Truth Social Archive | Public archive | Threat detection — primary statement feed; feeds the repetition-pattern dimension | 5-minute cache | Public archive |
| USITC DataWeb | Government tariff data | Outcome resolution + economic measurement (statutory↔applied gap drives reversal magnitude) | Monthly (rolling) | Public, JWT registration |
| CourtListener / PACER PCL | Federal court records | Outcome resolution (CIT / CAFC rulings) | 6-hourly / on-fallback | Public API |
| Congress.gov API | Government legislative data | Outcome resolution (bill actions for legislation-linked events) | Per bill-linked event | Public, free key |
| Gemini (Google Search grounding) | AI resolver | Outcome resolution for overdue non-trade events (independent reporting weighted above self-reported posts) | Per overdue event | API key (optional) |
| eCFR | Government regulatory text | Outcome verification (regulatory diffs for resolved events) | Per resolved event | Public API |
| BLS Public Data API | Government price indices | Economic-impact measurement (four-group CPI, pass-through) | Monthly | Public, free key |
| FRED (St. Louis Fed) | Government macro series | Economic-impact measurement + macro context | Daily / monthly | Public, free key |
| Yahoo Finance (yfinance) | Market data feed | Economic-impact measurement (market reaction around threat/outcome dates) | Every 6h run | Public |
| Retail pass-through constants | Static calibration | Calibration only (superseded by live USITC rates each run) | Static seed | Disclosed constants |
Source ingestion runs every 6 hours. The public composite index is published
daily after validation; per-source freshness is exposed live at
/api/v1/sources/status
(human-readable view: source freshness status).
Each source updates on its own official release schedule.
| Source | Data | Auth | Official cadence |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Federal Register API v1 PUBLIC |
Executive Orders, Presidential Proclamations, tariff schedules, presidential memoranda. Primary source for EO event classification. | None (public API) | Daily (incremental) |
|
CNN Truth Social Archive PUBLIC |
All presidential Truth Social posts with engagement metadata. Used for real-time statement detection and threat classification. | None | 5-minute cache |
|
USITC DataWeb API v2 PUBLIC |
Applied tariff rates at HS-2 × country level (11 countries: CN, MX, CA, JP, KR, VN, TW, DE, GB, FR, IT). Duties collected ÷ customs value = effective applied rate. Core input to Reversal Magnitude scoring. | JWT (public registration) | Monthly (rolling 3-month window) |
|
BLS Public Data API v2 PUBLIC |
Import Price Index (EIUIR), PPI final demand (WPUFD4), manufacturing/retail employment (CEU30, CEU42). Four-group CPI proxies: Apparel, Household Furnishings, Food at Home, Medical Commodities, Services, Core Commodities. |
BLS_API_KEY (free registration) | Monthly (lookback to 2017) |
|
FRED API (St. Louis Fed) PUBLIC |
CPI (CPIAUCSL), core CPI (CPILFESL), S&P 500 (SP500), VIX (VIXCLS), goods trade balance (BOPGSTB), imports (IMPGS), PPI all commodities, nominal broad dollar index, 10Y/2Y Treasury yields. |
FRED_API_KEY (free registration) | Daily / monthly (series-specific) |
|
CourtListener API v4 PUBLIC |
U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) and Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) rulings affecting tariff validity and trade policy legality. Primary automated court ingest. | COURTLISTENER_API_KEY (free) | 6-hourly (within daily budget) |
|
PACER PCL (Case Locator) PUBLIC |
Automated fallback for CIT (citdc) and CAFC (cafc) cases not yet mirrored in CourtListener RECAP. REST API: auth via pacer.login.uscourts.gov/services/cso-auth → nextGenCSO token; case search via pcl.uscourts.gov/pcl-public-api/rest/cases/find. Triggered automatically when CourtListener raises errors on all courts. |
PACER_USERNAME + PACER_PASSWORD | On CourtListener error (automated fallback) |
|
yfinance (Yahoo Finance) PUBLIC |
SPY, VIX, and sector ETFs (XLP, XLI, XLY, EEM) daily closes around threat/outcome dates. Market impact signal only — not used in behavioral scoring. | None | Every 6-hour pipeline run |
|
eCFR API v1 PUBLIC |
Electronic Code of Federal Regulations — point-in-time snapshots for regulatory outcome verification against resolved events. | None | Per resolved event (10/run) |
|
Congress.gov API v3 PUBLIC |
Authoritative congressional bill actions and enactment status. Reconciles the outcome of monitoring events tied to legislation (e.g. the SAVE Act): bill death → abandoned, passage/enactment → full_implementation. No-ops when the key is unset. |
CONGRESS_API_KEY (free) | Per bill-linked event (10/run) |
|
Gemini API (Google Search grounding) AI |
Foreign-policy / domestic outcome reconciliation (v25). For overdue, still-pending non-trade events the Federal Register / court / Congress resolvers can't reach, determines whether the threatened action was carried out, de-escalated, or abandoned — weighting independent reporting above the president's own posts (records outcome_evidence_source = gemini_websearch vs self_reported). Claude remains the threat classifier. No-ops when the key is unset. |
GEMINI_API_KEY | Per overdue non-trade event (10/run) |
Two AI models sit between ingestion and scoring. They interpret public-source text into structured events and outcomes; they are not themselves data sources.
| Model | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic Claude | Threat classifier. Tags each ingested statement against the four PEPI criteria and as new_threat, action_claim, deescalation, or reiteration; extracts domain, severity, entities, deadline, and statutory authority with a confidence score. |
Events below 0.70 confidence are flagged for human review before they are confirmed. |
| Google Gemini (grounded) | Non-trade outcome resolver. Reconciles overdue foreign-policy / domestic outcomes the documentary resolvers can't reach, weighting independent reporting above self-reported posts. | Added alongside Claude (v25); confidence < 0.70 leaves the event monitoring. |
These datasets are loaded once during initialization and are not automatically refreshed.
| Source | Data | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Retail price pass-through constants | Published, freely-citable aggregate constants: retail pass-through (24%), CPI contribution (+0.76pp), consumer incidence (43%). The underlying retail-scanner replication package (≈359,104 products across five major U.S. retailers) was used only to verify methodology alignment — these are disclosed static constants, not a live or proprietary government input. | Economic-impact calibration for trade events; superseded by live USITC applied rates each pipeline run. |
| First-term trade-war rate references | First-term trade events: Section 232 (March 2018), Section 301 China tariff lists, Phase One deal terms, Canada/Mexico exemption timeline. | Historical event calibration for TACO-2018-* events. |
These sources have no public API. They are used for manual event verification and calibration audits — not for automated ingest.
| Source | Scope | How used |
|---|---|---|
| Atlantic Council Trump Tariff Tracker | Second-term (2025+) tariff events, court ruling timeline, statutory authority (IEEPA, Section 232, Section 301, Section 122) | Verify event dates, confirm court rulings, cross-check statutory authority |
| First-term trade-war rate reference | First-term (2018–2021) Section 232/301 events; Phase One deal terms | Source authority for first-term calibration events |
| Federal Register (historical) | Full presidential documents since 1994 | Manual verification of seed events predating our 2025-01-20 automated ingest start date |
| USTR Press Releases | Official tariff-action announcements; Section 301/232 investigations | Cross-check announced rates and dates. The formal USTR actions behind them now auto-ingest as Federal Register notices; the press page remains a manual reference. |
| Yale Budget Lab — Tariff Tracker | Monthly effective tariff rate, customs revenue, PCE goods/durables price deviation | Independent cross-validation of our USITC applied rates and BEA PCE series; pass-through range for the economic-impact calibration |
| PACER (full docket system) | All federal court dockets in real time (CIT, CAFC, and others) | Manual spot-checks of high-stakes tariff dockets (distinct from the automated PACER PCL case-locator fallback above) |