Accessing the Federal Register
My thought is you get the daily thing and ideally use your own LLM to be a 'decider' and only forward on stuff you care about. So you don't get alert fatigue. Unless you really are interested in the minutae. Then you could at least automate an LLM summary.
I don't really like trusting third party services (they tend to go down, or 'break' in that they decide they want to charge for some feature that used to be free), but just recently a family member that's a few content cycles behind decided to get more into joe rogan and apparently there's no email newsletter or even simple "email me when there's a new episode". So I signed him up for IFTTT since it seemed lowest friction, and did 'spotify new episode from followed show' -> 'email'.
I didn't spend too much time on it, goal was quick and dirty and something better than nothing, but at least visualping now has some ai summary and/or logic kind of integration.
Tbh if you aren't playing with LLM apis you should be. Use openrouter, one stop shop (and you even get immediate access to models that are like "you have to be tier 4 or higher" right away).
Things change by the week so there may be a better provider than openrouter, I specifically know of 2-3 trying to compete in the space, but that one is quite slick.
Pliny, the jailbreak LLM guy, uses openrouter for all of his api dev afaict (Besides direct webuis).
Key thing is what UI you want it to end up as and I've looked into various like ntfy and pushover (pushbullet went all faggy and nope'd out of the ios app store so, non-starter for me as work phones are always iOS) and stuff but just simple email is extremely plain and powerful, at least for me. Every language has libraries for it, just make a dedicated email account for your own notifications (free gmail works for the poors or normies) and vibe code up an LLM api integration, and goes to a place I already check regularly.
Lots of email clients even let you set what you get notified for or not, special email accounts or other things. Gmail app has a thing of what it deems 'important'.
(Yes gmail is zog'd but for stuff that might as well be published publicly, it's fine to take their money and use their servers. I suppose you could use outlook, dunno about proton api, but with the paid access you get imap/smtp, and you really only need smtp. Gmail api lets you have really fine-grained scope, which is reassuring imo).
Or just publish it publicly even for others and subscribe to it yourself. RSS readers still exist though email just has taken over RSS for me honestly. (I don't like the extra step of archiving an RSS post. With email I know the content in the email is still going to be there (careful about linked imaged vs attached though)).
Must be some way to use IFTTT or Zapier for LLM api stuff, which tbh would be ok if you just generate a special API key for it and ideally set limits so a breach doesn't drain your credits.
AI bot says this about traditional access
Here are all the normal ways to get the Federal Register, from official legal editions to alerts and data feeds:
Digital (official & printable)
- GovInfo (official legal edition): Every daily issue is available as a full PDF (entire issue) and XML; sections can be downloaded as PDF/text. It’s updated by ~6 a.m. ET on publication days. This online edition is the legal equivalent of the paper/microfiche editions. GovInfo
- Email (daily digest): Free email subscription to the daily Table of Contents via GovInfo (GovDelivery). GovInfo
Website (reader-friendly, with alerts)
- FederalRegister.gov (unofficial display): Clean HTML version of documents; each page links to the official PDF on GovInfo. The site itself isn’t the legal edition. Federal Register
- Subscriptions on FederalRegister.gov: You can subscribe by email or RSS to: the daily Table of Contents, specific agencies, topics (CFR indexing terms), custom saved searches, and even limit to “significant” documents. Federal Register
- Public Inspection (pre-publication): View filings before they appear in the daily issue and subscribe (email/RSS) by agency, saved search, or the full daily list. Federal Register+1
Physical formats
- Print (for purchase): Individual issues and annual subscriptions are available in print from GPO’s U.S. Government Bookstore. Microfiche subscriptions are also offered. GovInfo+1
- Libraries (free public access): Federal Depository Libraries (FDLP) nationwide maintain Federal Register collections and provide public access. gpo.gov+1
Feeds & developer access
- RSS: Available across FederalRegister.gov for daily TOC, agencies, topics, saved queries, and Public Inspection. Federal Register
- API & bulk data: A public REST API (no key required) and related resources are provided; source data originates from the files used to produce the print/PDF editions and bulk XML is available. Federal Register+1
- Electronic (FTP) subscription: GPO also offers a paid electronic subscription via FTP. GovInfo
Quick picks
- Want a single daily email? Use the GovInfo Table of Contents subscription. GovInfo
- Want granular alerts (by agency/topic/query) or RSS? Use FederalRegister.gov subscriptions. Federal Register
- Need the official PDF? Download from GovInfo (entire issue or sections). GovInfo
- Prefer paper? Order a print subscription from GPO or use an FDLP library. U.S. Government Bookstore+1
If you tell me how you’d like to follow it (daily digest vs. specific agencies/topics), I’ll point you to the exact subscription pages.
Could make a regular trip down to your local library that has access. Channel charlie kirk and see what universities are up to.
Hope that helps