TItimwis·Oct 28, 2026
DC did this years ago, too: https://github.com/DCCouncil/law-xml
Someone set it up for Philly and Baltimore too, but I can't seem to find it.
In Git for the US CodeDCCouncil
law-xml
OPEN SOURCE2017–2026
DCCouncil / law-xml
law-xml
DC Law - statutes and code - in xml format. (project: https://github.com/DCCouncil/dc-law)
10Distinct people
11Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
354GitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
DC Law - statutes and code - in xml format. (project: https://github.com/DCCouncil/dc-law)
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
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Also in these discussions
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year11 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2017-01-03 12:13:16 UTC to 2026-10-28 06:39:56 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
11 sourcesDirect link to the repo for DC's laws: https://github.com/DCCouncil/law-xml
In German parliament votes as a Git contribution graphDistrict of Columbia law and statutes as a Git repo
1 points · Open discussionThe District of Columbia uses Git to track law changes as well.
https://github.com/DCCouncil/law-xml
Similarly, the entire German Federal law can be found on Github:
https://github.com/bundestag/gesetze
In Ask HN: Why hasn't Git been adopted outside of software engineering?It looks like the Council of DC is taking some steps in this direction, with XML representations of their statutes and codes available on GitHub:
https://github.com/DCCouncil/dc-law-xml
And they do accept[1] pull requests apparently!
[1] - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/how-i-changed-th...
In Contradictions in Roman law left incurable headaches for its judgesOur nonprofit, Open Law Library, works with governments to do exactly this. For example, the DC Council uses our software to codify and publish their laws in xml and html on github: https://github.com/dccouncil/dc-law-xml. If you're interested in getting your government's laws published using git in human- and computer-readable formats, feel free to reach out to me at dgreisen [at] openlawlib [dot] org.
In US Constitution – A Git repo with history of editsWashington, DC officially keeps its changes in Github: https://github.com/DCCouncil/dc-law-xml
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/how-i-changed-th...
In US Constitution – A Git repo with history of editsThe only relevant link on the article https://github.com/DCCouncil/dc-law-xml
In How I changed the law with a GitHub pull requestHere's the original pull request: https://github.com/DCCouncil/dc-law-xml/pull/134/files
The text already mentioned "The Freedom of Information Act of 1976" unambiguously, but the metadata was incorrect.
In How I changed the law with a GitHub pull requestDC Law – Statutes and Code – In XML Format
4 points · Open discussionAnother co-founder of Open Law Library, here. This is precisely what we are doing - building a patch-based xml database of the law. However, we are building a general tool that can work with the vast majority of state and local jurisdictions.
We can't build good tools without good data. The only way to get it is to work directly with governments and make it easier for them to publish their official laws as clean xml than to publish their laws as PDFs.
Revision control and the law deserves its own blog post. In addition to being patch-based, patches can be created today, but apply retroactively, or languish for years, then suddenly apply because a triggering event occurred.
Our system ingests official laws and outputs an xml version of the official law. A government attorney uses our IDE to review the xml output and annotate it with codifi
Read the rest
cation instructions. Our system then uses those instructions to automatically codify the law, which is then published openly on the web in multiple formats.
We have been rapidly iterating on our xml format. You can see the beta version for our first partner, the District of Columbia, here: https://github.com/dccouncil/dc-law-xml/tree/development (feedback welcome).
As we partner with more jurisdictions, we will build a foundation of open, clean, accurate, and timely computer-readable laws on which anybody can build tools to improve government, citizen engagement, and access to justice.