Quoteless unlabeled points (old-format briefs with no citation system) were
being auto-labeled via raw SQL after db.get() loaded them into the session
identity map. SQLAlchemy's commit-time flush could re-emit the ORM object's
cached state, silently overwriting the raw UPDATE.
Fix: run a single bulk SQL UPDATE for all matching rows before any ORM objects
are loaded into the session. The commit is then a clean single-statement
transaction with nothing to interfere. LLM classification of quoted points
continues in a separate pass with normal flag_modified + commit.
Authored by: Jack Levy
Member Effectiveness Score
- New BillCosponsor table (migration 0018) with per-bill co-sponsor
party data required for the bipartisan multiplier
- bill_category column on Bill (substantive | commemorative | administrative)
set by a cheap one-shot LLM call after each brief is generated
- effectiveness_score / percentile / tier columns on Member
- New bill_classifier.py worker with 5 tasks:
classify_bill_category — triggered from llm_processor after brief
fetch_bill_cosponsors — triggered from congress_poller on new bill
calculate_effectiveness_scores — nightly at 5 AM UTC
backfill_bill_categories / backfill_all_bill_cosponsors — one-time
- Scoring: distance-traveled pts × bipartisan (1.5×) × substance (0.1×
for commemorative) × leadership (1.2× for committee chairs)
- Percentile normalised within (seniority tier × party) buckets
- Effectiveness card on member detail page with colour-coded bar
- Admin panel: 3 new backfill/calculate controls in Maintenance section
Representation Alignment View
- New GET /api/alignment endpoint: cross-references user's stanced bill
follows (pocket_veto/pocket_boost) with followed members' vote positions
- Efficient bulk queries — no N+1 loops
- New /alignment page with ranked member list and alignment bars
- Alignment added to sidebar nav (auth-required)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Nine efficiency improvements across the data pipeline:
1. NewsAPI OR batching (news_service.py + news_fetcher.py)
- Combine up to 4 bills per NewsAPI call using OR query syntax
- NEWSAPI_BATCH_SIZE=4 means ~4× effective daily quota (100→400 bill-fetches)
- fetch_news_for_bill_batch task; fetch_news_for_active_bills queues batches
2. Google News RSS cache (news_service.py)
- 2-hour Redis cache shared between news_fetcher and trend_scorer
- Eliminates duplicate RSS hits when both workers run against same bill
- clear_gnews_cache() admin helper + admin endpoint
3. pytrends keyword batching (trends_service.py + trend_scorer.py)
- Compare up to 5 bills per pytrends call instead of 1
- get_trends_scores_batch() returns scores in original order
- Reduces pytrends calls by ~5× and associated rate-limit risk
4. GovInfo ETags (govinfo_api.py + document_fetcher.py)
- If-None-Match conditional GET; DocumentUnchangedError on HTTP 304
- ETags stored in Redis (30-day TTL) keyed by MD5(url)
- document_fetcher catches DocumentUnchangedError → {"status": "unchanged"}
5. Anthropic prompt caching (llm_service.py)
- cache_control: {type: ephemeral} on system messages in AnthropicProvider
- Caches the ~700-token system prompt server-side; ~50% cost reduction on
repeated calls within the 5-minute cache window
6. Async sponsor fetch (congress_poller.py)
- New fetch_sponsor_for_bill Celery task replaces blocking get_bill_detail()
inline in poll loop
- Bills saved immediately with sponsor_id=None; sponsor linked async
- Removes 0.25s sleep per new bill from poll hot path
7. Skip doc fetch for procedural actions (congress_poller.py)
- _DOC_PRODUCING_CATEGORIES = {vote, committee_report, presidential, ...}
- fetch_bill_documents only enqueued when action is likely to produce
new GovInfo text (saves ~60–70% of unnecessary document fetch attempts)
8. Adaptive poll frequency (congress_poller.py)
- _is_congress_off_hours(): weekends + before 9AM / after 9PM EST
- Skips poll if off-hours AND last poll < 1 hour ago
- Prevents wasteful polling when Congress is not in session
9. Admin panel additions (admin.py + settings/page.tsx + api.ts)
- GET /api/admin/newsapi-quota → remaining calls today
- POST /api/admin/clear-gnews-cache → flush RSS cache
- Settings page shows NewsAPI quota remaining (amber if < 10)
- "Clear Google News Cache" button in Manual Controls
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- Fetch bill actions from Congress.gov and populate the action timeline
- Add nightly batch task and beat schedule for active bill actions
- Add admin reprocess endpoint for per-bill debugging
- Add BriefPanel with "What Changed" view and version history
- Add External API Health section with per-source latency testing
- Redesign Manual Controls as health panel with status dots and descriptions
- Add Resume Analysis task for stalled LLM jobs
- Add Backfill Dates & Links task for bills with null metadata
- Fix LLM provider/model DB overrides being ignored (env vars used instead)
- Fix Gemini 404: gemini-1.5-pro deprecated → gemini-2.0-flash
- Fix Anthropic models list: use REST API directly (SDK too old for .models)
- Replace test-LLM full analysis with lightweight ping (max_tokens=20)
- Add has_document field to BillDetail; show "No bill text published" state
- Fix "Introduced: —" showing for bills with null introduced_date
- Add bills_missing_sponsor and bills_missing_metadata to admin stats
- Add GovInfo health check using /collections endpoint (fixes 500 from /packages)
Authored-By: Jack Levy
- get_llm_provider() now accepts provider + model args so DB overrides
propagate through to all provider constructors (was always reading
env vars, ignoring the admin UI selection)
- /test-llm replaced with lightweight ping (max_tokens=20) instead of
running a full bill analysis; shows model name + reply, no truncation
- /api/settings/llm-models endpoint fetches available models live from
each provider's API (OpenAI, Anthropic REST, Gemini, Ollama)
- Admin UI model picker dynamically populated from provider API;
falls back to manual text input on error; Custom model name option kept
- Default Gemini model updated: gemini-1.5-pro → gemini-2.0-flash
Co-Authored-By: Jack Levy
Backend:
- Add fetch_bill_actions task with pagination and idempotent upsert
- Add fetch_actions_for_active_bills nightly batch (4 AM UTC beat schedule)
- Wire fetch_bill_actions into new-bill creation and _update_bill_if_changed
- Add backfill_brief_citations task: detects pre-citation briefs by JSONB
type check, deletes them, re-queues LLM processing against stored text
(LLM calls only — zero Congress.gov or GovInfo calls)
- Add admin endpoints: POST /bills/{id}/reprocess, /backfill-citations,
/trigger-fetch-actions; add uncited_briefs count to /stats
Frontend:
- New BriefPanel component: wraps AIBriefCard, adds amber "What Changed"
badge for amendment briefs and collapsible version history with
inline brief expansion
- Swap AIBriefCard for BriefPanel on bill detail page
- Admin panel: Backfill Citations + Fetch Bill Actions buttons; amber
warning in stats when uncited briefs remain
- Add feature roadmap document with phased plan through Phase 5
Co-Authored-By: Jack Levy
LLM prompts updated to output {text, citation, quote} objects for every
key_point and risk. govinfo_url stored on BillBrief (migration 0006) so
the frontend can link directly to the source document without an extra
query. AIBriefCard renders § citation chips that expand inline to show
the verbatim quote and a View source → GovInfo link. Old plain-string
briefs continue to render unchanged.
Authored-By: Jack Levy
