ucdb 0.1.1

Universal Code Database — convert legacy legal documents (PDF/DOCX/ODT/MD/TXT) into a queryable SQLite database based on the United States Legislative Markup (USLM) XML schema.

Universal Code Database

A pipeline for converting legacy legal documents — PDF, DOCX, ODT, plain text, and Markdown — into a queryable SQLite database based on the United States Legislative Markup (USLM) XML schema.

Goal

This project builds a one-way document ingestion system:

raw document → AI extraction → legislative XML → SQLite database

The database stores USLM XML as the canonical structured representation, while revision history, file hashes, processing metadata, AI provenance, and version-to-version diffs are tracked in SQLite metadata tables.

What is USLM?

United States Legislative Markup is the XML schema maintained by the U.S. House Office of the Law Revision Counsel and the Government Publishing Office (GPO) for encoding U.S. legislative documents — most notably the United States Code itself. It is the canonical, machine-readable representation that publishers, courts, and downstream tooling all consume.

We adopt it here because:

• It is hierarchical and self-describing. A statute naturally decomposes into nested levels — title → subtitle → chapter → subchapter → part → subpart → section → subsection → paragraph → subparagraph → clause — and USLM has elements for every one of them.
• Numbering and headings are first-class. Each container exposes <num> and <heading> children; prose lives inside <content><p>…</p></content>. This separation is exactly the structure a database wants.
• Identifiers are stable. USLM elements carry an identifier attribute (e.g. /us/usc/t26/s1) that survives revisions and is ideal as a cross-version join key.
• It is namespace-scoped. The official namespace is http://schemas.gpo.gov/xml/uslm, with metadata expressed via Dublin Core (http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/). This avoids ambiguity when local names collide (e.g. <dc:title> versus a USLM <title> container).

A minimal valid document looks like this:

<uslm xmlns="http://schemas.gpo.gov/xml/uslm"
      xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">
  <meta>
    <dc:title>Tax Code 2024 Edition</dc:title>
    <dc:type>code</dc:type>
    <dc:identifier>/tax-code/2024-01-01</dc:identifier>
  </meta>
  <main>
    <title identifier="/tax-code">
      <num>I</num>
      <heading>Tax Code</heading>
      <section identifier="/tax-code/s1">
        <num>1</num>
        <heading>Definitions</heading>
        <content>
          <p>Income means the gross receipts of any taxpayer.</p>
        </content>
      </section>
    </title>
  </main>
</uslm>

The official schemas (USLM-2.x.xsd, uslm-table-module.xsd, etc.) are published under usgpo/uslm. This project does not bundle them; you can plug a copy in via UCDB_USLM_XSD (see Configuration below) to enable strict validation.

Input Repository Structure

Users maintain an input document repository like:

./somewhere/<code-id>/<version-or-date>/document.{pdf,docx,odt,txt,md}

Example:

./input/tax-code/2024-01-01/document.pdf
./input/tax-code/2024-06-01/document.docx

<code-id> becomes the primary key in the codes table; <version-or-date> is recorded as the version label. The actual filename is preserved on the row.

Features

• Create, add to, and query a legislative code database
• Batch-process document repositories
• Record source file hashes (SHA-256) for reproducibility
• Track versions, dates, changes, and processing metadata
• Convert legacy documents into United States Legislative Markup XML
• Store structured results in SQLite
• Support AI-assisted processing via GPT API and compatible endpoints such as Gemini, Ollama, or other OpenAI-compatible APIs

Installation

From PyPI:

pip install ucdb
# or
uv tool install ucdb     # gives you a global `ucdb` command

For local development the project uses uv and a src/ layout:

uv sync          # create a venv and install dependencies
uv run ucdb --help

The wheel installs a ucdb console script. You can also invoke the package directly with python -m ucdb.

Quick Start

# 1. point at an OpenAI-compatible backend
export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
# optional: use a different provider
# export OPENAI_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434/v1
# export UCDB_MODEL=gpt-5.4-mini

# 2. create the database
ucdb init                       # writes ./ucdb.sqlite3

# 3. scan the input repo (no side effects)
ucdb scan ./input

# 4. run the full pipeline
ucdb process ./input

# 5. inspect what was loaded
ucdb query codes
ucdb query versions tax-code
ucdb query sections 1
ucdb query search "income"

# 6. browse the collected database in a local web UI
ucdb serve --open

If you have already produced USLM XML out-of-band, skip the AI step:

ucdb import ./pre-generated.xml \
    --code-id tax-code --version 2024-01-01 \
    --source ./input/tax-code/2024-01-01/document.pdf

Configuration

Environment variable	Purpose	Default
UCDB_DB	Default SQLite path (overridden by --db)	ucdb.sqlite3
OPENAI_API_KEY	API key for the AI backend	(required)
OPENAI_BASE_URL	Endpoint for OpenAI-compatible providers (Gemini, Ollama, vLLM …)	OpenAI default
UCDB_MODEL	Model id used for XML generation	gpt-5.4-mini
UCDB_USLM_XSD	Path to a USLM XSD; enables strict schema validation	(off)
UCDB_JSON	If set, process/import also dump a JSON summary	(off)

All of these can also be supplied through a .env file. On startup ucdb looks for a .env in the current working directory (and any parent), loading it without overriding values already present in the real environment — so an explicit export OPENAI_API_KEY=… always wins. Pass --env-file <path> to load an explicit file that does override existing values.

# .env
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
OPENAI_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434/v1
UCDB_MODEL=gpt-5.4-mini

Components

Core library

Layout under src/ucdb/:

db.py          SQLite schema + data-access helpers
extract.py     PDF / DOCX / ODT / plain-text / Markdown extraction
hashing.py     SHA-256 file hashing & MIME guessing
ai.py          OpenAI-compatible client → USLM XML
xml_utils.py   Namespace-aware USLM parsing + XSD validation
ingest.py      XML → flat sections rows
revisions.py   Version-to-version diff engine
scan.py        Walk <root>/<code>/<version>/<file>
process.py     End-to-end pipeline orchestration
cli.py         Click-based CLI
blame.py       Line-level provenance computation (git-blame analog)

A 10-snapshot synthetic test suite lives under tests/. It builds a ~100-line legislative code, mutates it through ten plausible edit scenarios (additions, removals, repeal-and-reenact, multi-section rewrites), drives the result through the full ingest pipeline, and asserts that diff/blame/history return the expected attributions. Run it with uv run python tests/test_history.py (or uv run pytest tests/ once pytest is installed).

The library is intentionally thin and synchronous; every operation runs inside a single db.connect() transaction so partial work rolls back on failure.

CLI

ucdb init                              create a new database
ucdb scan <root>                       list documents in an input repo
ucdb process <root>                    run the full AI pipeline
ucdb process-one <file> --code-id … --version …
ucdb import <xml>     --code-id … --version … [--source <doc>]
ucdb serve                             browse the database at http://127.0.0.1:8000
ucdb query codes
ucdb query versions <code-id>
ucdb query sections <version-id>
ucdb query section  <section-id> [--xml]
ucdb query search   <text> [--code-id <id>] [--raw]
ucdb query log       [--code-id <id>] [--version-id <id>]
ucdb query xml       <version-id>
ucdb query revisions <code-id>
ucdb query revision  <revision-id> [--type added|removed|modified]
ucdb query diff      <change-id>
ucdb query diff-versions <code-id> --from <v1> --to <v2> [--identifier <id>] [--unified]
ucdb query blame     <code-id> <identifier> [--version <v>]
ucdb query history   <code-id> <identifier>

Database schema

codes(id PK, title, description, created_at, updated_at)

document_versions(
  id PK, code_id FK→codes,
  version_label, effective_date,
  source_path, source_hash, source_size, source_mime,    -- source provenance
  xml_content, xml_hash,                                  -- generated USLM + its hash
  ai_provider, ai_model, ai_base_url,                     -- AI provenance
  validation_status, validation_message,                  -- well-formed/schema check
  parent_version_id FK→document_versions,                 -- previous version of the same code
  status,                                                 -- pending|extracting|generating|validating|imported|failed
  created_at, processed_at,
  UNIQUE(code_id, version_label),
  UNIQUE(code_id, source_hash)
)

sections(
  id PK, version_id FK, parent_id FK→sections,
  level,                                    -- title|chapter|section|subsection|…
  identifier, num, heading, content,
  xml_fragment, ordering
)

processing_log(
  id PK, code_id, version_id, step, status,
  message, details(JSON), created_at
)

-- Revision tracking — populated automatically after each successful import.
revisions(
  id PK, code_id FK,
  from_version_id FK→document_versions,     -- NULL for the very first version
  to_version_id   FK→document_versions,
  sections_added, sections_removed,
  sections_modified, sections_unchanged,
  summary(JSON), created_at,
  UNIQUE(from_version_id, to_version_id)
)

section_changes(
  id PK, revision_id FK,
  change_type,                              -- added | removed | modified
  identifier, level, num, heading,          -- snapshot for quick listing
  from_section_id FK→sections,              -- NULL for added
  to_section_id   FK→sections,              -- NULL for removed
  text_diff                                 -- unified diff of section content (modified only)
)

-- Line-level provenance — backs `ucdb query blame`. Populated after each
-- successful import alongside the revision computation.
section_lines(
  id PK, section_id FK→sections,
  line_no,                                  -- 1-based, content-line index (blanks skipped)
  text,                                     -- the line itself
  origin_version_id FK→document_versions,   -- version that first introduced this exact line
  origin_section_id FK→sections,            -- the section row in origin_version_id
  UNIQUE(section_id, line_no)
)

sections.parent_id reconstructs the legislative hierarchy as a self-referencing tree; ordering preserves document order; xml_fragment keeps the original USLM subtree so nothing is lost in the flattening step.

Full-text search

sections is shadowed by a SQLite FTS5 virtual table, sections_fts, that indexes heading, content, and identifier with the unicode61 tokenizer (diacritics folded). The index is kept in sync with sections via AFTER INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE triggers, so writes through the normal data-access layer require no extra plumbing — older databases are migrated and back-filled automatically the next time ucdb opens them.

ucdb query search and db.search_sections() use this index and rank results by BM25:

ucdb query search "income tax"           # phrase match (default — input is quoted for you)
ucdb query search 'income*' --raw        # raw FTS5 syntax: prefix, AND/OR/NOT, NEAR, column filters
ucdb query search 'heading:definitions' --raw

Revision tracking

The pipeline keeps two levels of detail about how documents change over time:

• USLM XML — stored verbatim per version in document_versions.xml_content. This is the canonical structured representation; it carries the legislative hierarchy, section text, and any USLM amendment-related markup the AI emits.
• SQLite metadata tables — revisions summarises each version-to-version transition (counts of added / removed / modified / unchanged sections), and section_changes records one row per affected section, joined back to the actual sections rows on either side. Modified sections additionally carry a unified text_diff so you can see exactly what wording changed without re-running the AI.

Sections are aligned across versions by their USLM identifier attribute — the only key the schema guarantees to be stable across revisions. Sections without an identifier are reported as anonymous additions/removals.

Revisions are computed automatically after each successful process or import run, comparing the new version against the most recent previously-imported version of the same code (lexicographic by version_label). To inspect them:

ucdb query revisions tax-code           # one row per (from → to) transition
ucdb query revision 2                   # section-level changes for revision 2
ucdb query revision 2 --type modified   # filter to a single change type
ucdb query diff 4                       # unified text diff for one section change

Each document_versions row also records its AI provenance (ai_provider, ai_model, ai_base_url) and the SHA-256 of the generated XML (xml_hash), so a given output can be traced back to a specific model/endpoint and verified later for tampering.

Diff between any two versions

ucdb query diff was already there for inspecting one persisted section_changes row. ucdb query diff-versions adds the git diff <a> <b> analog: pick any two versions of the same code (they need not be adjacent) and the comparison is recomputed on the fly using the same engine that drives the persisted revisions.

ucdb query diff-versions tax-code --from 2020-01-01 --to 2024-07-01
ucdb query diff-versions tax-code --from 2020-01-01 --to 2024-07-01 \
    --identifier /tax-code/s3 --unified

Line-level blame

Every line of every section carries a first-introduction stamp in section_lines. When a new version is imported, each section's lines are aligned against the same identifier in the predecessor version using difflib.SequenceMatcher; lines that survive unchanged inherit the predecessor's origin_version_id, while edited or new lines are stamped with the current version. The result is a git blame analog: every line of every section, at every version, knows when it was authored.

ucdb query blame tax-code /tax-code/s5                    # blame at the latest version
ucdb query blame tax-code /tax-code/s5 --version 2023-01-01
ucdb query history tax-code /tax-code/s5                  # every revision that touched this identifier

If a section is removed and later re-introduced under the same identifier, the re-introduction acts as a fresh history root: blame attributes its lines to the re-introduction version, not transitively to the original. This matches the legal reality that a repealed-then-reenacted provision is a new enactment.

The pipeline also computes blame for the very first version of a code: every line is stamped with the first version, since there is nothing earlier to inherit from.

Processing Workflow

1. Hash the source file (sha256)        — dedupe + reproducibility
2. Upsert the code, create a version row
3. Extract plain text (pypdf / python-docx / odfpy; `.txt`/`.md` pass through verbatim)
4. Send text to the AI backend; receive USLM XML
5. Parse + well-formedness check (lxml)
6. Structural check: <uslm> root with a <main>; optional XSD validation
7. Walk USLM-namespace elements, insert sections (parent ↔ child)
8. Mark version `imported`; record AI provenance + xml hash
9. Compute a revision against the previous version (if any) and persist section-level diffs
10. Record every step in processing_log

Re-running ucdb process is a no-op for any source whose hash already exists with status imported. Use --reprocess to force.

Design Principles

• One-way ingestion. Input documents are the source of truth; the database is regenerated from them.
• Namespace-correct USLM. Hierarchical containers are matched only when they live in the USLM namespace (or have no namespace), so foreign elements like <dc:title> cannot be mistaken for USLM <title> containers.
• Reproducible processing. Every version row carries the SHA-256 of its source, plus a step-by-step processing_log audit trail.
• Traceable changes across document versions. Multiple versions of the same code coexist as separate document_versions rows; their sections share identifier values where present, so cross-version queries are straightforward.
• Modular AI backend. Anything that speaks the OpenAI Chat Completions wire format works — swap providers via OPENAI_BASE_URL / UCDB_MODEL.
• SQLite-first. Single-file database, WAL journaling, foreign keys enabled — portable, embeddable, easy to back up.