How This Works
A plain-language explanation of how we process documents and make them searchable.
Document Collection
Documents are sourced from public releases by the U.S. House Oversight Committee. These include PDFs, images, and text files that have been made available to the public. We collect these documents in their original form without modification.
Text Extraction
For each document, we extract the readable text content using appropriate methods:
- Text files: Directly read the content
- PDF files: Extract embedded text or use OCR for scanned pages
- Image files: Use optical character recognition (OCR) to read text, plus AI vision models to describe visual content
AI Summarization
The extracted text is processed by a large language model (LLM) that:
- Reads and analyzes the document content
- Identifies the main topics and key information
- Generates a concise summary (typically 2-4 sentences)
- Notes any names, dates, or significant details
Tagging & Categorization
Each document is automatically tagged with relevant keywords based on:
- Names of people mentioned
- Organizations and companies
- Locations and places
- Document types (letter, memo, photograph, etc.)
- Topics and themes
- Dates and time periods
Tags help you find related documents and explore the collection by topic.
Search & Browse
All processed documents are stored in a searchable database. You can find documents by:
- Keyword search: Search for any word or phrase
- Tag browsing: Click on tags to find related documents
- File type filtering: Filter by document format (text, images)
- Related documents: See documents that share similar tags
View Original Documents
When you find a document of interest, you can view the original file directly. We store images and text files in cloud storage, allowing you to see exactly what was in the original release—not just our AI's interpretation of it.
In Summary
We take publicly released documents, extract their text, use AI to create searchable summaries and tags, and provide tools to help you find what you're looking for. The AI helps with discovery, but you should always verify important information by reviewing the original documents.