Your First Query

You will need: congress-approp installed (Installation), access to the data/ directory from the cloned repository.

You will learn: How to explore the included FY2024 appropriations data using five core commands — no API keys required.

This chapter walks through five core commands using the included dataset. Every command shown here produces output you can verify against the data files.

Step 1: See What Bills You Have

Start with the summary command to get an overview:

congress-approp summary --dir data

┌───────────┬───────────────────────┬────────────┬─────────────────┬─────────────────┬─────────────────┐
│ Bill      ┆ Classification        ┆ Provisions ┆ Budget Auth ($) ┆ Rescissions ($) ┆      Net BA ($) │
╞═══════════╪═══════════════════════╪════════════╪═════════════════╪═════════════════╪═════════════════╡
│ H.R. 4366 ┆ Omnibus               ┆       2364 ┆ 846,137,099,554 ┆  24,659,349,709 ┆ 821,477,749,845 │
│ H.R. 5860 ┆ Continuing Resolution ┆        130 ┆  16,000,000,000 ┆               0 ┆  16,000,000,000 │
│ H.R. 9468 ┆ Supplemental          ┆          7 ┆   2,882,482,000 ┆               0 ┆   2,882,482,000 │
│ TOTAL     ┆                       ┆       2501 ┆ 865,019,581,554 ┆  24,659,349,709 ┆ 840,360,231,845 │
└───────────┴───────────────────────┴────────────┴─────────────────┴─────────────────┴─────────────────┘

0 dollar amounts unverified across all bills. Run `congress-approp audit` for detailed verification.

Here’s what each column means:

Column	Meaning
Bill	The bill identifier (e.g., H.R. 4366)
Classification	What kind of appropriations bill: Omnibus, Continuing Resolution, or Supplemental
Provisions	Total number of provisions extracted from the bill
Budget Auth ($)	Sum of all provisions with `new_budget_authority` semantics — what Congress authorized agencies to spend. Computed from the actual provisions, not from any LLM-generated summary
Rescissions ($)	Sum of all rescission provisions — money Congress is taking back from prior appropriations
Net BA ($)	Budget Authority minus Rescissions — the net new spending authority

The footer line — “0 dollar amounts unverified” — tells you that every extracted dollar amount was confirmed to exist in the source bill text. This is the headline trust metric.

Step 2: Search for Provisions

The search command finds provisions matching your criteria. Let’s start broad — all appropriation-type provisions across all bills:

congress-approp search --dir data --type appropriation

This returns a table with hundreds of rows. Let’s narrow it down. Find all provisions mentioning FEMA:

congress-approp search --dir data --keyword "Federal Emergency Management"

┌───┬───────────┬───────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────┬────────────────┬──────────┬─────┐
│ $ ┆ Bill      ┆ Type          ┆ Description / Account                         ┆     Amount ($) ┆ Section  ┆ Div │
╞═══╪═══════════╪═══════════════╪═══════════════════════════════════════════════╪════════════════╪══════════╪═════╡
│   ┆ H.R. 5860 ┆ other         ┆ Allows FEMA Disaster Relief Fund to be appor… ┆              — ┆ SEC. 128 ┆ A   │
│ ✓ ┆ H.R. 5860 ┆ appropriation ┆ Federal Emergency Management Agency—Disast…   ┆ 16,000,000,000 ┆ SEC. 129 ┆ A   │
│ ✓ ┆ H.R. 5860 ┆ appropriation ┆ Office of the Inspector General—Operations…   ┆      2,000,000 ┆ SEC. 129 ┆ A   │
└───┴───────────┴───────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────────┴────────────────┴──────────┴─────┘
3 provisions found

$ = Amount status: ✓ found (unique), ≈ found (multiple matches), ✗ not found

Understanding the $ column — the verification status for each provision’s dollar amount:

Symbol	Meaning
✓	Dollar amount string found at exactly one position in the source text — highest confidence
≈	Dollar amount found at multiple positions (common for round numbers like $5,000,000) — amount is correct but can’t be pinned to a unique location
✗	Dollar amount not found in the source text — needs manual review
(blank)	Provision doesn’t carry a dollar amount (riders, directives)

Now try searching by account name. This matches against the structured account_name field rather than searching the full text:

congress-approp search --dir data --account "Child Nutrition"

┌───┬───────────┬───────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────┬────────────────┬─────────┬─────┐
│ $ ┆ Bill      ┆ Type          ┆ Description / Account                       ┆     Amount ($) ┆ Section ┆ Div │
╞═══╪═══════════╪═══════════════╪═════════════════════════════════════════════╪════════════════╪═════════╪═════╡
│ ✓ ┆ H.R. 4366 ┆ appropriation ┆ Child Nutrition Programs                    ┆ 33,266,226,000 ┆         ┆ B   │
│ ✓ ┆ H.R. 4366 ┆ appropriation ┆ Child Nutrition Programs                    ┆     18,004,000 ┆         ┆ B   │
│ ...                                                                                                          │
└───┴───────────┴───────────────┴─────────────────────────────────────────────┴────────────────┴─────────┴─────┘

The top result — $33.27 billion for Child Nutrition Programs — is the top-level appropriation. The smaller amounts below it are sub-allocations and reference amounts within the same account.

You can combine filters. For example, find all appropriations over $1 billion in Division A (MilCon-VA):

congress-approp search --dir data/118-hr4366 --type appropriation --division A --min-dollars 1000000000

Step 3: Look at the VA Supplemental

The smallest bill, H.R. 9468, is a good place to see the full picture. It has only 7 provisions:

congress-approp search --dir data/118-hr9468

┌───┬───────────┬───────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬──────────┬─────┐
│ $ ┆ Bill      ┆ Type          ┆ Description / Account                         ┆    Amount ($) ┆ Section  ┆ Div │
╞═══╪═══════════╪═══════════════╪═══════════════════════════════════════════════╪═══════════════╪══════════╪═════╡
│ ✓ ┆ H.R. 9468 ┆ appropriation ┆ Compensation and Pensions                     ┆ 2,285,513,000 ┆          ┆     │
│ ✓ ┆ H.R. 9468 ┆ appropriation ┆ Readjustment Benefits                         ┆   596,969,000 ┆          ┆     │
│   ┆ H.R. 9468 ┆ rider         ┆ Establishes that each amount appropriated o…  ┆             — ┆ SEC. 101 ┆     │
│   ┆ H.R. 9468 ┆ rider         ┆ Unless otherwise provided, the additional a…  ┆             — ┆ SEC. 102 ┆     │
│   ┆ H.R. 9468 ┆ directive     ┆ Requires the Secretary of Veterans Affairs …  ┆             — ┆ SEC. 103 ┆     │
│   ┆ H.R. 9468 ┆ directive     ┆ Requires the Secretary of Veterans Affairs …  ┆             — ┆ SEC. 103 ┆     │
│   ┆ H.R. 9468 ┆ directive     ┆ Requires the Inspector General of the Depar…  ┆             — ┆ SEC. 104 ┆     │
└───┴───────────┴───────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴──────────┴─────┘
7 provisions found

This is the complete bill: two appropriations ($2.3B for Comp & Pensions, $597M for Readjustment Benefits), two policy riders (SEC. 101 and 102 establishing that these amounts are additional to regular appropriations), and three directives requiring the VA Secretary and Inspector General to submit reports about the funding shortfall that necessitated this supplemental.

Notice how the two appropriations have ✓ in the dollar column, while the riders and directives show no symbol — they don’t carry dollar amounts, so there’s nothing to verify.

Step 4: See What the CR Changed

Continuing resolutions normally fund agencies at prior-year rates, but specific programs can get different treatment through “anomalies” — formally called CR substitutions. These are provisions that say “substitute $X for $Y,” setting a new level instead of continuing the old one.

congress-approp search --dir data/118-hr5860 --type cr_substitution

┌───┬───────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬──────────────┬──────────┬─────┐
│ $ ┆ Bill      ┆ Account                                  ┆       New ($) ┆       Old ($) ┆    Delta ($) ┆ Section  ┆ Div │
╞═══╪═══════════╪══════════════════════════════════════════╪═══════════════╪═══════════════╪══════════════╪══════════╪═════╡
│ ✓ ┆ H.R. 5860 ┆ Rural Housing Service—Rural Community…   ┆    25,300,000 ┆    75,300,000 ┆  -50,000,000 ┆ SEC. 101 ┆ A   │
│ ✓ ┆ H.R. 5860 ┆ Rural Utilities Service—Rural Water a…   ┆    60,000,000 ┆   325,000,000 ┆ -265,000,000 ┆ SEC. 101 ┆ A   │
│ ✓ ┆ H.R. 5860 ┆                                          ┆   122,572,000 ┆   705,768,000 ┆ -583,196,000 ┆ SEC. 101 ┆ A   │
│ ✓ ┆ H.R. 5860 ┆ National Science Foundation—STEM Educ…   ┆    92,000,000 ┆   217,000,000 ┆ -125,000,000 ┆ SEC. 101 ┆ A   │
│ ✓ ┆ H.R. 5860 ┆ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admini… ┆    42,000,000 ┆    62,000,000 ┆  -20,000,000 ┆ SEC. 101 ┆ A   │
│ ✓ ┆ H.R. 5860 ┆ National Science Foundation—Research …   ┆   608,162,000 ┆   818,162,000 ┆ -210,000,000 ┆ SEC. 101 ┆ A   │
│ ✓ ┆ H.R. 5860 ┆ Department of State—Administration of…   ┆    87,054,000 ┆   147,054,000 ┆  -60,000,000 ┆ SEC. 101 ┆ A   │
│ ✓ ┆ H.R. 5860 ┆ Bilateral Economic Assistance—Funds A…   ┆   637,902,000 ┆   937,902,000 ┆ -300,000,000 ┆ SEC. 101 ┆ A   │
│ ✓ ┆ H.R. 5860 ┆ Bilateral Economic Assistance—Departm…   ┆   915,048,000 ┆ 1,535,048,000 ┆ -620,000,000 ┆ SEC. 101 ┆ A   │
│ ✓ ┆ H.R. 5860 ┆ International Security Assistance—Dep…   ┆    74,996,000 ┆   374,996,000 ┆ -300,000,000 ┆ SEC. 101 ┆ A   │
│ ✓ ┆ H.R. 5860 ┆ Office of Personnel Management—Salari…   ┆   219,076,000 ┆   190,784,000 ┆  +28,292,000 ┆ SEC. 126 ┆ A   │
│ ✓ ┆ H.R. 5860 ┆ Department of Transportation—Federal …   ┆   617,000,000 ┆   570,000,000 ┆  +47,000,000 ┆ SEC. 137 ┆ A   │
│ ✓ ┆ H.R. 5860 ┆ Department of Transportation—Federal …   ┆ 2,174,200,000 ┆ 2,221,200,000 ┆  -47,000,000 ┆ SEC. 137 ┆ A   │
└───┴───────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴──────────────┴──────────┴─────┘
13 provisions found

Notice how the table automatically changes shape for CR substitutions — it shows New, Old, and Delta columns instead of a single Amount. This tells you exactly which programs Congress funded above or below the prior-year rate:

Most programs were cut: Migration and Refugee Assistance lost $620 million (-40.4%), NSF Research lost $210 million (-25.7%)
Two programs increased: OPM Salaries and Expenses gained $28 million (+14.8%) and FAA Facilities and Equipment gained $47 million (+8.2%)
Every dollar amount has ✓ — both the new and old amounts were verified in the source text

Step 5: Check Data Quality

The audit command shows how well the extraction held up against the source text:

congress-approp audit --dir data

┌───────────┬────────────┬──────────┬──────────┬───────┬───────┬──────────┬───────────┬──────────┬──────────┐
│ Bill      ┆ Provisions ┆ Verified ┆ NotFound ┆ Ambig ┆ Exact ┆ NormText ┆ Spaceless ┆ TextMiss ┆ Coverage │
╞═══════════╪════════════╪══════════╪══════════╪═══════╪═══════╪══════════╪═══════════╪══════════╪══════════╡
│ H.R. 4366 ┆       2364 ┆      762 ┆        0 ┆   723 ┆  2285 ┆       59 ┆         0 ┆       20 ┆    94.2% │
│ H.R. 5860 ┆        130 ┆       33 ┆        0 ┆     2 ┆   102 ┆       12 ┆         0 ┆       16 ┆    61.1% │
│ H.R. 9468 ┆          7 ┆        2 ┆        0 ┆     0 ┆     5 ┆        0 ┆         0 ┆        2 ┆   100.0% │
│ TOTAL     ┆       2501 ┆      797 ┆        0 ┆   725 ┆  2392 ┆       71 ┆         0 ┆       38 ┆          │
└───────────┴────────────┴──────────┴──────────┴───────┴───────┴──────────┴───────────┴──────────┴──────────┘

The key number: NotFound = 0 for every bill. Every dollar amount the tool extracted actually exists in the source bill text. Here’s a quick guide to the other columns:

Column	What It Means	Good Value
Verified	Dollar amount found at exactly one position in source	Higher is better
NotFound	Dollar amounts NOT found in source	Should be 0
Ambig	Dollar amount found at multiple positions (e.g., “$5,000,000” appears 50 times)	Not a problem — amount is correct
Exact	`raw_text` excerpt is byte-identical to source	Higher is better
NormText	`raw_text` matches after whitespace/quote normalization	Minor formatting difference
TextMiss	`raw_text` not found at any matching tier	Review manually
Coverage	Percentage of dollar strings in source text matched to a provision	100% is ideal, <100% is often fine

For a deeper dive into what these numbers mean, see Verify Extraction Accuracy and What Coverage Means.

Step 6: Export to JSON

Every command supports --format json for machine-readable output. This is useful for piping to jq, loading into Python, or just seeing the full data:

congress-approp search --dir data/118-hr9468 --type appropriation --format json

[
  {
    "account_name": "Compensation and Pensions",
    "agency": "Department of Veterans Affairs",
    "amount_status": "found",
    "bill": "H.R. 9468",
    "description": "Compensation and Pensions",
    "division": "",
    "dollars": 2285513000,
    "match_tier": "exact",
    "old_dollars": null,
    "provision_index": 0,
    "provision_type": "appropriation",
    "quality": "strong",
    "raw_text": "For an additional amount for ''Compensation and Pensions'', $2,285,513,000, to remain available until expended.",
    "section": "",
    "semantics": "new_budget_authority"
  },
  {
    "account_name": "Readjustment Benefits",
    "agency": "Department of Veterans Affairs",
    "amount_status": "found",
    "bill": "H.R. 9468",
    "description": "Readjustment Benefits",
    "division": "",
    "dollars": 596969000,
    "match_tier": "exact",
    "old_dollars": null,
    "provision_index": 1,
    "provision_type": "appropriation",
    "quality": "strong",
    "raw_text": "For an additional amount for ''Readjustment Benefits'', $596,969,000, to remain available until expended.",
    "section": "",
    "semantics": "new_budget_authority"
  }
]

The JSON output includes every field for each provision — more detail than the table can show. Key fields to know:

dollars: The dollar amount as an integer (no formatting)
semantics: What the amount means — new_budget_authority counts toward budget totals
raw_text: The verbatim excerpt from the bill text
match_tier: How closely raw_text matched the source — exact means byte-identical
quality: Overall quality assessment — strong, moderate, or weak
provision_index: Position in the bill’s provision list (useful for --similar searches)

Other output formats are also available: --format csv for spreadsheets, --format jsonl for streaming one-object-per-line output. See Output Formats for details.

Enrich for Fiscal Year and Subcommittee Filtering

The example data includes pre-enriched metadata, but if you extract your own bills, run enrich to enable fiscal year and subcommittee filtering:

congress-approp enrich --dir data      # No API key needed — runs offline

Once enriched, you can scope any command to a specific fiscal year and subcommittee:

# FY2026 THUD subcommittee only
congress-approp summary --dir data --fy 2026 --subcommittee thud

# See advance vs current-year spending
congress-approp summary --dir data --fy 2026 --subcommittee milcon-va --show-advance

# Compare THUD across fiscal years
congress-approp compare --base-fy 2024 --current-fy 2026 --subcommittee thud --dir data

# Trace one provision across all bills
congress-approp relate 118-hr9468:0 --dir data --fy-timeline

See Enrich Bills with Metadata for the full guide.

What’s Next

Related chapters:

Want to filter by fiscal year or subcommittee? → Enrich Bills with Metadata
Want to find specific spending? → Find How Much Congress Spent on a Topic
Want to compare bills across fiscal years? → Compare Two Bills
Want to track a program across all bills? → Track a Program Across Bills
Want to export data to Excel or Python? → Export Data for Spreadsheets and Scripts
Want to understand the output better? → Understanding the Output (next chapter)
Want to extract your own bills? → Extract Your Own Bill
Want to search by meaning instead of keywords? → Use Semantic Search

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