Govern · Public Records

The deadline is computed from the statute, not configured

Fifteen jurisdictions encoded with citations — clock basis, extensions, tolling grounds, deemed denial, fee tiers — with the arithmetic shown on screen and the search recorded against the request, because the legal standard is the adequacy of the search.

Grotabyte — Public Records · R-2026-041

Response due 2026-09-1416 business days

computed from the versioned statutory ruleset — federal holidays encodedon the clock

Exemption applied · (b)(6)4 records

personnel privacy — basis recorded against the specific records

Search recorded against this requestfee est. $42.50

what was searched, when, by whom — attached to the response file

Unverifiable statutory figures are marked UNVERIFIED and excluded from computation

Where it starts

A request lands. Choosing the jurisdiction is choosing a clock — the dropdown says so on each option: Federal, 20 business days; California, 10 calendar; Washington, 5 business; Florida, no statutory clock. Three business days reads very differently from twenty.

How it runs

01
Log the request against its statute
Fifteen jurisdictions ship encoded, each a citation rather than a guess — and the screen explains why it isn't fifty: on the screen where a deadline is defended, a guess and a citation look identical. A sixteenth can be added, field by statutory field.
02
Read the clock with its working
The due date shows its arithmetic — '20 business +10 ext +3 tolled' — with per-jurisdiction holidays (Massachusetts observes Patriots' Day; Texas keeps its offices open on Texas Independence Day). Tolling and extension are constrained to the statute's own grounds; a second once-only extension is refused.
03
Search, and record that you looked
The search runs against the archive and is stored against the request: the query, the responsive count, who ran it, when. The legal standard is the adequacy of the search, not of the production — a tool that begins after 'someone gathered the files' cannot produce that.
04
Apply exemptions with their citations
The federal exemption library ships with each (b)(7) subsection as its own code — because 'could reasonably be expected to' and 'would' are different standards — with severability and the 25-year deliberative-process sunset encoded.
05
Produce, determine, and mind the appeal clock
The response runs the same production machinery as litigation — Bates, load files, redactions in force. Adverse determinations carry appeal rights, including NO_RECORDS; in deemed-denial states the screen computes the appeal deadline that is already running with no letter to date it from.

Why it holds up

Unverifiable statutory figures are marked UNVERIFIED and excluded from computation — these numbers go into deadline letters and fee invoices agencies rely on.

The fee calculator takes clock state as an input: federal law and Illinois both strip fee authority when the deadline is missed, and a calculator that doesn't know that can produce an unlawful invoice.

A search whose result set would be truncated is refused rather than recorded — an agency cannot attest to a search whose own results were cut off.

The ten-oldest-pending report keeps reopened requests in their original place, as DOJ requires.

Statutes that aren't what they look like are modelled individually: Texas's 10 days is an AG-referral deadline, not a response deadline, and the screen says so.

What you hand the regulator

A workflow that ends on a screen isn’t finished. This one ends in a document.

The response file

Everything the response has to survive on: the clock with its arithmetic, the recorded search, the exemptions with citations, and a production the requester can actually open.

deadline computation: basis · statutory days · extensions · tolling · due date
recorded search: query · responsive count · actor · timestamp
exemptions applied, each with citation and scope
fee determination with tier, waivers, and deadline-bar status
Bates-numbered production with redactions in force

Adjacent workflows

Search & Term Hit Reports Productions Retention & Certified Destruction

See it run on your data scenario

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How it runs

Log the request against its statute

Fifteen jurisdictions ship encoded, each a citation rather than a guess — and the screen explains why it isn't fifty: on the screen where a deadline is defended, a guess and a citation look identical. A sixteenth can be added, field by statutory field.

Read the clock with its working

The due date shows its arithmetic — '20 business +10 ext +3 tolled' — with per-jurisdiction holidays (Massachusetts observes Patriots' Day; Texas keeps its offices open on Texas Independence Day). Tolling and extension are constrained to the statute's own grounds; a second once-only extension is refused.

Search, and record that you looked

The search runs against the archive and is stored against the request: the query, the responsive count, who ran it, when. The legal standard is the adequacy of the search, not of the production — a tool that begins after 'someone gathered the files' cannot produce that.

Apply exemptions with their citations

The federal exemption library ships with each (b)(7) subsection as its own code — because 'could reasonably be expected to' and 'would' are different standards — with severability and the 25-year deliberative-process sunset encoded.

Produce, determine, and mind the appeal clock

The response runs the same production machinery as litigation — Bates, load files, redactions in force. Adverse determinations carry appeal rights, including NO_RECORDS; in deemed-denial states the screen computes the appeal deadline that is already running with no letter to date it from.