Billy

Documentation

Public bills & sharing

Share a readable bill link without logging in — or mint a private client status packet for tracked work.

Public bill URL shape

SEO pages live outside the workspace shell:

  • Directory: /bills — live jurisdictions.
  • Jurisdiction hub: /bills/{jurisdiction} — for example /bills/in.
  • Session hub: /bills/{jurisdiction}/{session} — for example /bills/in/2026.
  • Overview: /bills/{jurisdiction}/{session}/{slug} — for example /bills/in/2026/hb-1001.
  • Changes: add /diff?from=…&to=… for a read-only change log / rollup when that pair is already computed.

Jurisdiction and session are required so the same identifier in two sessions does not collide. Breadcrumbs link hub → session → bill. Thin stub bills stay crawlable but are noindex until they have a redline, change summary, or rich chronology; the sitemap only lists indexable bills (sharded per jurisdiction under /sitemaps/).

Logged-out bill overview: status, Track this bill / View changes, and the latest AI change summary — no workspace chrome.

What visitors see

  • Public-record bill metadata: title, status, sponsors, subjects, actions, version timeline, official source links, plus deadline / hearing chips when Billy has them.
  • Related documents when the source publishes them (fiscal notes, committee reports, and similar) — links out to the official URL; not a substitute for the bill text corpus.
  • Roll-call votes on the chronology when OpenStates or Congress.gov publish tallies (chamber, motion, yes/no counts).
  • SEO-ready pages: session in the title, status/sponsor meta descriptions, per-bill Open Graph cards, and Legislation / FAQ JSON-LD for crawlers.
  • Latest AI rollup when available — clearly labeled as AI-assisted.
  • Precomputed change summaries when Billy has already built that version pair — never on-demand LLM work for anonymous traffic.

Separate from SEO public pages: under Settings → Share, mint a revocable, no-index link for a read-only client status view of this workspace’s tracked bills (positions and position notes visible). No account required. The full token is shown once — copy it immediately; revoke anytime. Optional expiry is available via the API.

Settings → Share: mint a revocable client status link — prepared-for label, copy-once token.

What stays private

  • Workspace notes, annotations, summary corrections, and feed events (except what you intentionally put on a share link).
  • Signed storage URLs for Billy’s private document bucket — public pages link official documents.url sources instead.
  • On-demand diff / summarize jobs. If a change summary is not precomputed, the public page says so and points visitors to sign in.

Not in product yet

  • Opt-in published commentary (org-bylined public insights on bill pages).
  • Canonical links from every authenticated bill view back to the public slug (workspace bills remain UUID routes today).
  • Full interactive public Diff Viewer (word-level Redline mode, evidence PDF) — public /diff is a read-only summary surface.