# xbrlkit
[](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
Work with XBRL filings above [Arelle](https://arelle.org): fetch a filing, parse
it **once** into a neutral typed model, and project that model into whichever
portable representation you need — or hand it one of those representations and
get the model back.
```
EDGAR ───────────┐
filings.xbrl.org ├──▶ Arelle ──▶ XbrlModel ──┬──▶ holon.jsonld (RDF / JSON-LD)
XBRL zip / iXBRL ┘ ▲ ├──▶ TAVI (compiled model)
│ ├──▶ xBRL-JSON (OIM)
holon, TAVI ──────┘ └──▶ property graph (parquet, .lbug)
primary HTML ──▶ xbrlkit.text ──▶ sections (text blocks, Items, tables)
holon, TAVI ──▶ xbrlkit view ──▶ the report, rendered in a browser
any of the above ──▶ xbrlkit serve ──▶ MCP client (18 shaped tools)
```
Three ways in — the SEC, everyone else through
[filings.xbrl.org](https://filings.xbrl.org), and **the filing itself**: an
XBRL package or archive (`.zip`), an iXBRL document (`.htm`), a bare instance
(`.xml`), a filing directory, or an `http(s)` URL to any of them. Nothing about
the middle of this requires EDGAR, or a regulator at all — a report that was
never filed with anybody parses like one that was.
Four projections out, and two of those read back, so a report that was never an
SEC filing gets the same treatment. A fifth surface, the filing's text, reads
the primary HTML directly and needs neither Arelle nor the network. And
`xbrlkit view` puts a filing on screen.
**It is also a local MCP server.** The package stands alone — a library and a
CLI — but `xbrlkit serve` holds filings in memory and exposes them to Claude,
ChatGPT or any MCP client through eighteen shaped tools, which makes reading a
filing a conversation instead of a script: ask for a statement, the concepts
behind a phrase, what foots to a subtotal, a segment breakdown, an exhibit, or
a regex across the prose. Nothing is indexed and no database sits behind it —
every answer is read from the filing in memory, on your machine.
**[What you can ask it →](#what-you-can-ask-it)**
Arelle stays the parser — nobody should reimplement DTS resolution. What it
does not give you is anything ergonomic to *hold*: `ModelXbrl` is a large
mutable object graph tied to a controller you have to close. `XbrlModel` is the
answer to that — stateless, single-filing, lossless, and the waist every
projection hangs off.
**The one architectural rule:** everything goes through `XbrlModel`. A feature
that reaches into Arelle's `ModelXbrl` directly is bypassing the waist, and
that is the change that turns a kit into a junk drawer.
## What's in the box
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| [**`parse`**](https://github.com/RoboFinSystems/xbrlkit/blob/main/xbrlkit/parse/README.md) | Arelle in, `XbrlModel` out | the load, the DTS cache policy, taxonomy packages |
| [**`serialize`**](https://github.com/RoboFinSystems/xbrlkit/blob/main/xbrlkit/serialize/README.md) | the four projections | holon, TAVI (+ its gap report), xBRL-JSON, the property graph |
| [**`deserialize`**](https://github.com/RoboFinSystems/xbrlkit/blob/main/xbrlkit/deserialize/README.md) | the importers | a holon or a TAVI read back into the model, no Arelle |
| [**`edgar`**](https://github.com/RoboFinSystems/xbrlkit/blob/main/xbrlkit/edgar/README.md) | the SEC | discovery, download, full-text search, 1994 onward |
| [**`filings_org`**](https://github.com/RoboFinSystems/xbrlkit/blob/main/xbrlkit/filings_org/README.md) | everyone else | ESEF and the national regimes, by LEI |
| [**`text`**](https://github.com/RoboFinSystems/xbrlkit/blob/main/xbrlkit/text/README.md) | the filing as prose | inline text blocks, 10-K/10-Q Items, the XML forms |
| [**`serve`**](https://github.com/RoboFinSystems/xbrlkit/blob/main/xbrlkit/serve/README.md) | the local MCP server | eighteen shaped tools over a filing in memory |
`model.py` is the waist itself, `schema/` declares the property graph's tables,
`query.py` runs SPARQL over a built holon, and `view.py` is the loopback server
behind `xbrlkit view` and the `view_filing` tool.
## Install
```bash
pip install xbrlkit
```
Exposes the `xbrlkit` CLI (`build`, `fetch`, `query`, `cache`, `serve`) and the
library. Two optional extras: `xbrlkit[lpg]` for the property-graph projection
(pyarrow, LadybugDB) and `xbrlkit[mcp]` for the MCP server.
From a source checkout:
```bash
brew install uv just
just install # dependencies, and .env from the template
```
### SEC User-Agent
SEC fair access asks for a `User-Agent` identifying you with contact info.
EDGAR works out of the box under a default that names the project, and the
first unattributed fetch says so once — SEC rate limits per IP, so the shared
default costs nobody else their budget. Identifying yourself is a courtesy,
and one worth extending. `just install` already created your `.env`:
```bash
# .env
SEC_GOV_USER_AGENT="Your Name your@email.com"
```
`.env` is loaded automatically by every command **run from a checkout of this
repo** — the lookup is relative to the installed code, not your working
directory, so a `uvx` or `pip` install never picks one up. There, use
`export SEC_GOV_USER_AGENT=…`, `--user-agent`, or an MCP `env` block (see
[Serve to an MCP client](#serve-to-an-mcp-client)). Nothing outside EDGAR
needs it — a local file, a JSON report and filings.xbrl.org all load without.
## Usage
```bash
# Build a holon.jsonld from a specific filing (-> ./output/)
xbrlkit build --cik 320193 --accno 0000320193-23-000106
# The other projections: TAVI (plus its .tavi.gaps.json sidecar), xBRL-JSON,
# the property graph (needs the lpg extra), or every one of them
xbrlkit build --cik 320193 --accno 0000320193-23-000106 --format tavi
xbrlkit build --cik 320193 --accno 0000320193-23-000106 --format all
# Fetch the latest filing for a ticker (-> ./output/); --form and --n filter
xbrlkit fetch --ticker NVDA
# Query consolidated facts in a built holon (in-memory SPARQL)
xbrlkit query --in output/0000320193-23-000106.holon.jsonld --element us-gaap:Assets
# Open a filing as a rendered report in the browser — no account, no download
xbrlkit view NVDA
# The filing itself needs no EDGAR and no network — an XBRL .zip, an iXBRL
# .htm, a bare instance .xml, a filing directory. `serve` and `view` take any
# source; `build` and `fetch` are the EDGAR path
xbrlkit view ./report.zip
xbrlkit serve ./mmm-20241231.htm
```
From a source checkout, `just` wraps the same CLI: `just build 320193
0000320193-23-000106` and `just fetch NVDA`.
```python
from xbrlkit.parse import load_model, to_xbrl_model
from xbrlkit.serialize import to_holon, to_tavi_report
from xbrlkit.deserialize import from_holon_json
model = to_xbrl_model(load_model("mmm-20241231.htm"), filing_meta)
holon = to_holon(model)
tavi, gaps = to_tavi_report(model)
model = from_holon_json(holon) # and back again
```
## Serve to an MCP client
Two ways to run it. They differ in which process does the fetching, and so in
where your SEC identity goes.
**stdio — the client launches the server.** The identity belongs in the
server's own `env` block:
```json
{
"mcpServers": {
"xbrlkit": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": [
"--from", "xbrlkit[mcp]@latest",
"xbrlkit", "serve", "--transport", "stdio"
],
"env": { "SEC_GOV_USER_AGENT": "Your Name you@example.com" }
}
}
}
```
**HTTP — you start the server, the client only points at a URL.** An `env`
block in the client config would reach nothing here; set it on the command:
```bash
pip install "xbrlkit[mcp]"
SEC_GOV_USER_AGENT="Your Name you@example.com" xbrlkit serve
# → MCP at http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp
# or without installing anything
SEC_GOV_USER_AGENT="Your Name you@example.com" \
uvx --from "xbrlkit[mcp]@latest" xbrlkit serve
```
```json
{
"mcpServers": {
"xbrlkit": { "type": "http", "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp" }
}
}
```
or, equivalently:
```bash
claude mcp add --transport http xbrlkit http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp
```
A `.env` file is **not** a channel for either of these. The lookup is relative
to the installed code rather than your working directory, so it resolves only
inside a checkout of this repo — a `uvx` or `pip` install never sees one. Use
the environment, the `env` block, or `--user-agent`.
Both are optional: EDGAR works unattributed under the default, saying so once.
And filings.xbrl.org, local packages and TAVI/holon JSON need no identity at all.
### What you can ask it
Load a filing from the chat — a ticker, an EDGAR `cik:accession`, a `lei:` for
ESEF and the national regimes, a local package, or a holon or TAVI by path or
URL. A ticker or `cik:accession` loads the filing's published holon first when
the RoboSystems CDN has one, falling back to EDGAR. Then:
- **Pull a statement as a table.** The income statement, balance sheet, cash
flow or equity statement — or any disclosure network — as rows in the filer's
own order and labels, values per period column.
- **Find the concept behind a phrase.** "Revenue", "operating lease liability"
→ the qnames *this* filer actually reports, its own extension concepts
included, ranked with fact counts and where each appears. You never have to
guess a US-GAAP name.
- **Get values by concept and period.** Consolidated totals by default — no
dimensional qualifier, the most precise of duplicate tags — or broken out by
any axis the filing carries: segment, product, debt instrument, acquisition.
- **Check whether a subtotal foots.** The calculation children with their
weights, the reported total against the sum computed from them, per period,
with the difference.
- **Read one disclosure whole.** A note's rows with values, the same rows by
its own axes, its calculation arcs footed, and its tagged text beside the
numbers. The `disclosures` index finds the right block first, cheaply.
- **Search the prose.** Regex over the whole primary document — Items, the
notes, the cover, the signatures, tagged or not. A pattern that matches more
than fits in the answer says which sections the rest fall in, busiest first.
- **Read the other documents.** Exhibits, an 8-K's EX-99.1 earnings release —
where the non-GAAP measures and guidance live, since no XBRL holds them — or
a 13F's holdings table.
- **Read the forms with no XBRL at all.** A Form 4's transactions and holdings,
a 13F's positions, as rows with the document's header fields beside them.
- **Find filings worth reading.** EDGAR full-text search across the corpus by
phrase, form, date and filer, where every hit carries the id that loads it.
- **Export or render it.** Write the filing as holon, TAVI, xBRL-JSON, ClawDog,
a LadybugDB graph, or the parse itself; or open it as a rendered report in the
browser and hand back the link.
No graph and no database sits behind any of it: every answer about a filing is
read from that filing. The one outward call is `search_filings`, which asks
EDGAR's own full-text index which filings to go and read. Full detail,
including the tool table and the `--pure` profile, in
[`serve/`](https://github.com/RoboFinSystems/xbrlkit/blob/main/xbrlkit/serve/README.md).
## Where it runs
**RoboSystems.** The platform's SEC pipeline is built on this package: filings
are parsed with `xbrlkit.parse` (its own Arelle controller, with
`register_sec_transforms` and the cache policy from `configure_webcache`),
projected with `to_holon`, `to_tavi_report` and the property-graph tables, the
shared `sec` graph is declared from `xbrlkit.schema`, and the full-text index
behind its document search is built from `xbrlkit.text`.
**Filing Ladder.** The
[Filing Ladder](https://github.com/HarbingerFinLab/filing-ladder) benchmark —
one filing handed to the same language model in every representation — built
its 26-filing corpus of 2024–2025 10-Ks and 10-Qs with this package. Each
projection is a rung of the ladder, so its
[published results](https://github.com/HarbingerFinLab/filing-ladder/blob/main/results/README.md)
are also a measurement of what a model can do with each of these outputs. That
corpus is this package's test bench too: the text sections were checked against
the filing's own text-block facts on all 26 filings, the property graph row for
row against the platform's processor, and the JSON importers by round trip.
## View & explore
Built holons and TAVI models render in the **xbrlkit viewer** — the browser
side of the toolkit, a reader that renders the financial statements and lets
you ask questions of the report with AI:
- **Hosted:** — open a `holon.jsonld` or a `tavi.json`
and explore the statements, notes and dimensional facts, or chat with the
report.
- **Source:**
The viewer reads a holon entirely client-side, so a single `holon.jsonld` is a
complete, portable, self-describing report. Its chat asks the report raw
questions (jq over a TAVI model, SPARQL over a holon); `xbrlkit serve` is the
other side of that pair — the same filing behind shaped tools, on your own
machine.
**`xbrlkit view` joins the two.** It resolves a filing the way `serve` does,
serializes it, and hands that one document to the viewer:
```bash
xbrlkit view NVDA # the latest 10-K, rendered in a browser tab
xbrlkit view "NVDA 10-Q" --as tavi # a different form, a different serialization
xbrlkit view 320193:0000320193-23-000106
xbrlkit view lei:549300E9PC51EN656011 # a filer outside EDGAR
xbrlkit view output/x.holon.jsonld # a document you already have, verbatim
xbrlkit view NVDA --no-open # print the link instead of opening it
```
Without installing anything:
```bash
uvx xbrlkit view NVDA
```
A browser cannot be handed a local path — `file://` is unreachable from an
https page, and a file input cannot be pre-populated — so this serves the
document instead, on an ephemeral loopback port with an unguessable path, and
opens `xbrlkit.com/view?url=…` pointing at it (earlier releases open
`xbrlkit.com/?url=…`, which keeps working). `http://127.0.0.1` is a
potentially trustworthy origin, so the https page may read it; the CORS header
names the viewer's origin and no other. The document is readable there, by that
origin, until you press Ctrl-C. `--viewer` points at a different build.
From an MCP client the same thing is the `view_filing` tool: *"load NVDA"*,
then *"show me it"*.
## License
MIT © 2026 RFS LLC — see [LICENSE](LICENSE).