name: Congress.gov API FinOps
description: >
  Financial operations guidance for the Congress.gov API. This API is a free
  public service operated by the Library of Congress and funded by the US
  federal government. There are no direct costs to API consumers.
url: https://api.congress.gov/
cost:
  model: free
  price: 0
  currency: USD
  notes: >
    The Congress.gov API is provided at no cost to developers. Funding comes
    from the Library of Congress operating budget as part of its public data
    dissemination mission. No billing, subscription, or payment integration
    is required.
optimization:
  - name: Maximize Page Size
    description: >
      Use limit=250 to minimize the number of HTTP requests needed to retrieve
      large result sets, reducing overall latency and bandwidth overhead.
  - name: Cache Responses
    description: >
      Legislative data changes infrequently for historical congresses. Cache
      responses locally to avoid redundant calls and stay within the 5,000
      requests/hour limit.
  - name: Request Rate Awareness
    description: >
      Monitor request counts to avoid hitting the 5,000/hour ceiling. Implement
      exponential back-off on 429 responses.
  - name: Select Response Format
    description: >
      Use JSON format for most integrations; XML is available for legacy
      systems. JSON is lighter and easier to parse in most modern environments.
risks:
  - name: Government Shutdown
    description: >
      As a federal service, the API may become unavailable during US government
      shutdowns or budget lapses. Build resilience and caching into dependent
      applications.
  - name: No SLA
    description: >
      No formal SLA or uptime guarantee is published. Monitor GitHub issues for
      outage reports and planned maintenance notifications.