PocketVeto
A self-hosted platform for monitoring US Congress. Follow bills and legislators, get AI-generated policy briefs, track trending legislation, and receive alerts when bills you care about move.
Features
- Bill tracking — search and browse all active legislation with full text and status history
- AI policy briefs — LLM-generated summaries, key points, risks, and deadlines for each bill
- Member profiles — legislator bios, effectiveness scores, sponsored bills, vote history, and news
- Follows & alerts — follow bills, members, or policy topics; choose between neutral, pocket-veto, or pocket-boost mode per follow
- Notifications — ntfy, RSS, and email (SMTP); per-channel alert filters with quiet hours
- Collections — curate shareable lists of bills with a public share link
- Alignment view — see how legislators vote relative to your followed bills and stances
- Draft letter — AI-assisted letter generator to contact your representative on any bill
- Admin panel — pipeline controls, LLM switching, user management, API health checks
Tech stack
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Backend | FastAPI, SQLAlchemy (async), Alembic, Celery, PostgreSQL, Redis |
| Frontend | Next.js (App Router), TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, React Query, Zustand |
| AI | OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, or Ollama (switchable at runtime) |
| Infrastructure | Docker Compose, Nginx |
Quick start
Prerequisites: Docker Engine 24+ and Docker Compose v2 on a Linux server (2 GB RAM minimum).
API keys you'll need:
| Key | Where to get it | Required? |
|---|---|---|
DATA_GOV_API_KEY |
api.data.gov/signup — free, instant | Yes |
| LLM key (OpenAI / Anthropic / Gemini) | Provider dashboard | Yes (or use Ollama) |
NEWSAPI_KEY |
newsapi.org — free tier (100 req/day) | Optional |
git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/pocketveto.git
cd pocketveto
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env — set JWT_SECRET_KEY, ENCRYPTION_SECRET_KEY, DATA_GOV_API_KEY, and your LLM key at minimum
docker compose up --build -d
Open http://YOUR_SERVER_IP in a browser. The first registered account becomes admin.
After registering, go to Settings and click Trigger Poll to load the initial bill data, then Sync Members to load legislator profiles.
For detailed instructions — including SSL setup, email configuration, and updating — see DEPLOYING.md and UPDATING.md.