# Lex-Ray

> Lex-Ray publishes EU legislation, UK legislation, UK-retained EU law and the
> FCA Handbook as structured data: one stable URL per provision, parsed text
> rather than scraped HTML, and an explicit statement of the currency limits on
> the day you ask. 260 instruments carry full parsed text
> (70 EU, 38 UK/UK-retained,
> 152 FCA Handbook); several hundred more carry bibliographic
> metadata only.

If you are a language model or an agent acting for one, read this file rather
than scraping the reader. Everything below is a stable contract.

## How a provision is addressed

An act is addressed by its CELEX id or by a short acronym:
`https://lexray.simmons-simmons.com/32024R1689` and `https://lexray.simmons-simmons.com/aia` are the same act.

A provision is the act path plus a token — `a6` (article 6), `r2` (recital 2),
`anx3` (annex III), `s5` / `sch2` for UK sections and schedules:

- `https://lexray.simmons-simmons.com/aia/a6` — human-readable page
- `https://lexray.simmons-simmons.com/aia/a6.md` — the same provision as Markdown
- `https://lexray.simmons-simmons.com/aia/a6.json` — the same provision as structured JSON
- `https://lexray.simmons-simmons.com/aia.json` — the whole act: metadata, structure, currency

Anchors inside a payload (`#art_6.1`) are the anchors the rendered document
uses, derived from each node's full structural path. Quote them; they resolve.

## How to judge currency

Entry into force and application are different legal events and are routinely
years apart. Every machine rendering carries a `currency` block with:

- `as_at` — the date the status was derived for, in the act's own legal frame
  (Brussels for EU acts, London for UK and FCA material)
- `status` — one of `not_yet_in_force`, `in_force_not_yet_applying`,
  `partially_applying`, `applying`, `expired`, `unknown`
- `subject` — **whom that status is about**: `you` (the act applies directly) or
  `member_states` (a directive, whose status describes the transposition
  timetable). Read with `reach` (`direct` / `via_national_law`) and the boolean
  `applies_directly`.
- `status_basis` — `commencement_record` when the act's commencement has been
  resolved from the official notice (deterministic), or `dates_only` when it was
  derived from the date columns alone. A `dates_only` status is indicative: for
  an act that commences in stages, the recorded entry-into-force date can be one
  of the later application dates. FCA Handbook rows with no temporal model use
  `not_modelled` and publish `applies_directly: null`; do not infer
  commencement, history, future changes or direct applicability for them.
- `version` — the corpus version the text was materialised from, if the act has
  more than one

**`status` never means anything on its own — always read it with `subject`.** A
directive binds Member States to legislate; the obligations reach a regulated
party through national implementing law, which Lex-Ray does not hold. So
`{"status": "applying", "subject": "member_states"}` says the transposition
timetable is applying, **not** that anyone owes a duty under the directive
directly. Only `subject: "you"` (equivalently `applies_directly: true`) licenses
that reading.

Two limits of the `dates_only` basis worth knowing before you quote one:

- On a directive it answers from the recorded application date without
  consulting the transposition timetable, and reports `unknown` where there is no
  such date. `unknown` there is a real answer — a directive's status comes from
  its timetable or it is not known — and is never a reason to fall back on
  `date_entry_into_force`.
- `partially_applying` is only ever reached from a resolved
  `commencement_record`; the date columns alone cannot see a tranche.

`partially_applying` is not a rounding error: the AI Act applies in four
tranches. Do not answer "is this in force" from `date_entry_into_force` alone,
and do not reuse a `currency` block across days — re-fetch it.

## What requires an account

The metadata, the structure and the currency of every act are open. Article and
recital text, definitions, and resolved cross-references are the paid corpus.
An open payload says so in its `entitlement` block and carries no article
bodies — it is never silently truncated text. The public `.json` and `.md`
routes return `200` with this projected payload. Full-content REST endpoints
guarded by `lexray_content_required` instead return `401 authentication_required`
or `402 lexray_access_required`, with `preview_available: true`. MCP refusals are
in-band tool errors with stable `code` values such as `authentication_required`,
`entitlement_required`, and `forbidden`.

## The structured route in

- [MCP server](https://lexray.simmons-simmons.com/mcp) — JSON-RPC over HTTP, OAuth-protected.
  It is dual-era and stateless: clients that open with the `initialize`
  handshake (MCP 2025-03-26 to 2025-11-25) are served without a session, and a
  request carrying MCP 2026-07-28 metadata — `params._meta`
  (`io.modelcontextprotocol/protocolVersion`,
  `io.modelcontextprotocol/clientCapabilities`) plus the `MCP-Protocol-Version`
  and `Mcp-Method` headers (and `Mcp-Name` for `tools/call` and `prompts/get`) —
  is served by that revision. Discovery is `initialize` (or `server/discover`
  for a 2026-07-28 client) followed by `tools/list`; both are available before
  a client has selected a credential. A 2026-07-28 client may declare the MCP
  Tasks extension (`io.modelcontextprotocol/tasks`) in its per-request
  `clientCapabilities`: `request_coverage` (ask for an instrument the corpus
  lacks) then answers with a task to poll with `tasks/get` (`Mcp-Name` set to
  the `taskId`) until it completes with the retrieval step. Every other client
  gets the request record at once and reads it with `get_coverage_request`. Public/free Lex-Ray tools are:
  `about_this_server`,
  `search_instruments`,
  `get_legislation`,
  `get_toc`,
  `get_article`,
  `list_fca_sourcebooks`,
  `list_articles`,
  `get_licence`.
  `get_article` resolves definitions and cross-references server-side, so a
  definition reads as its meaning rather than as a pointer to another instrument.
  Lex-Ray-only full-content tools include:
  `get_legislation_text`,
  `request_coverage`,
  `get_coverage_request`,
  `submit_feedback`.
- [OAuth metadata](https://lexray.simmons-simmons.com/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource)
- [Sitemap](https://lexray.simmons-simmons.com/sitemap.xml) — every indexed act and provision
- [Pricing](https://lexray.simmons-simmons.com/pricing) — what an account costs and what it opens
- [About](https://lexray.simmons-simmons.com/about) — what Lex-Ray is, who sells it, and the key facts

## Reporting a problem

If a call exposes a gap — a bug, a missing feature, or a task you could not
complete — report it where you hit it. Reports reach the same triage queue as
feedback from the web app; one that makes sense becomes a GitHub issue, where a
fix is drafted and a human approves it.

- [Feedback schema](https://lexray.simmons-simmons.com/api/feedback/schema) — the report's fields,
  where to send it and the rate limit; no credential needed to read it.
- `POST https://lexray.simmons-simmons.com/api/feedback/report` with any API key
  (`Authorization: Bearer lr_…`) and a JSON body: `category` (`bug`, `feature`,
  `task_failure`, `other`), `summary`, `details`, and optionally `attempted`,
  `expected`, `actual`, `surface`, `error_code`, `request_id`, `identifier`,
  `client`. Unknown fields are refused with `invalid_arguments` naming the
  accepted ones.
- MCP: the `submit_feedback` tool takes the same fields (Lex-Ray credential).

## Optional

- [AI transparency notice](https://lexray.simmons-simmons.com/ai-transparency) — where this site
  uses AI, and how AI-assisted content is marked
- [Privacy notice](https://lexray.simmons-simmons.com/privacy)