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>
Notifications:
- New /notifications page accessible to all users (ntfy + RSS config)
- ntfy now supports no-auth, Bearer token, and HTTP Basic auth (for ACL-protected self-hosted servers)
- RSS enabled/disabled independently of ntfy; token auto-generated on first GET
- Notification settings removed from admin-only Settings page; replaced with link card
- Sidebar adds Notifications nav link for all users
- notification_dispatcher.py: fan-out now marks RSS events dispatched independently
Action history:
- Migration 0012: deduplicates existing bill_actions rows and adds UNIQUE(bill_id, action_date, action_text)
- congress_poller.py: replaces existence-check inserts with ON CONFLICT DO NOTHING (race-condition safe)
- Added backfill_all_bill_actions task (no date filter) + admin endpoint POST /backfill-all-actions
Authored-By: Jack Levy
- Replace fragile entry.get("link") with _gnews_entry_url() helper that
checks entry.link attribute then falls back to entry.links[].href,
fixing cases where feedparser puts the URL in a non-standard location
- Lazy news re-fetch on bill detail now only triggers when the stored
trend score confirms gnews_count > 0, preventing endless re-queuing
for bills with genuinely no news coverage
Co-Authored-By: Jack Levy
Adds Google Trends, NewsAPI, and Google News RSS scoring for members,
mirroring the existing bill interest pipeline. Member profiles now show
a Public Interest chart (with signal breakdown) and a Related News panel.
Key changes:
- New member_trend_scores + member_news_articles tables (migration 0008)
- fetch_gnews_articles() added to news_service for unlimited RSS article storage
- Bill news fetcher now combines NewsAPI + Google News RSS (more coverage)
- New member_interest Celery worker with scheduled news + trend tasks
- GET /members/{id}/trend and /news API endpoints
- TrendChart redesigned with signal breakdown badges and bar+line combo chart
- NewsPanel accepts generic article shape (bills and members)
Co-Authored-By: Jack Levy
