congressional-tech

Contributors

Fork	Branch Name	Description
agurvich	feature/tinydb	adding TinyDB support
mikewolfd	N/A	N/A
ezrajohnmitchell	N/A	N/A
dragonejt	3-congress_youtube-scrapes-congressional-committee-youtube-channels-for-all-videos	Scraping YouTube metadata
fwliu1	N/A	N/A

Git LFS Setup

⚠️ This repository uses Git Large File Storage (LFS).️ ️⚠️

You must install Git LFS before cloning or working with this repo.

Install Git LFS

macOS (Homebrew):

brew install git-lfs

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu):

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git-lfs

Linux (Fedora/RHEL/CentOS):

sudo dnf install git-lfs

Windows: • Download and run the installer from https://git-lfs.com/ • Or install via Chocolatey:

choco install git-lfs

Initialize Git LFS

Run this once after installing:

git lfs install

⚠️ If you don’t install Git LFS then running git clone will result in the following error message:

git-lfs filter-process: git-lfs: command not found
fatal: the remote end hung up unexpectedly
warning: Clone succeeded, but checkout failed.
You can inspect what was checked out with 'git status'
and retry with 'git restore --source=HEAD :/'

in which case you must delete the directory, install Git LFS following the instructions above, and try again.

Development Containers

🐳 This repository includes Development Container configuration for a consistent development environment.

Quick Start with Devcontainers

Prerequisites:

• Docker Desktop or Docker Engine
• VS Code with the Dev Containers extension

Getting Started:

1. Clone this repository (Git LFS will be automatically configured)
2. Open the repository in VS Code
3. When prompted, click "Reopen in Container" or press Ctrl+Shift+P and select "Dev Containers: Reopen in Container"
4. Wait for the container to build and initialize (~3-5 minutes first time)

What's Included:

• Ubuntu 22.04 base environment
• Python 3.11 with all project dependencies pre-installed
• Node.js 20 for the Next.js web application
• Git LFS pre-configured and initialized
• VS Code extensions for Python, TypeScript, and web development
• Helpful shell aliases for quick navigation between projects

Available Commands:

# Quick navigation
ct-root      # Navigate to project root
ct-app       # Navigate to Next.js app
ct-youtube   # Navigate to YouTube data project
ct-inflation # Navigate to inflation data project

# YouTube data processing
youtube-fetch --help      # Fetch committee YouTube videos  
youtube-analyze --help    # Analyze videos for missing event IDs
congress-fetch --help     # Fetch congressional meeting data

# Web application
cd app && npm run dev     # Start Next.js development server

Benefits:

• ✅ No local setup required - everything works out of the box
• ✅ Consistent environment - same setup for all developers and CI/CD
• ✅ Isolated dependencies - won't interfere with your host system
• ✅ Pre-configured tools - linting, formatting, and debugging ready to go

Development Environment Details

For detailed development workflows, Git LFS data handling, and troubleshooting common issues, see the Development Container README.

Key development features:

• Pre-configured Python and Node.js environments
• Git LFS support with automatic data file handling
• CLI commands for data processing and analysis
• Comprehensive troubleshooting guidance

Project List

See the full project list & details at https://github.com/civictechdc/congressional-tech/tree/main/docs/README.md

Project name	Level of Effort
I. Enhancing Congressional Data Accessibility & Usability
Unified Congressional Hearing & Markup Data Platform	3
Congressional Committee YouTube Video Dashboard & Event ID Tracking	2
Statements of Disbursements as Structured Data	4
Appropriations Data Pipeline & Historical Analysis	5+
II. Workflow Efficiency Tools for Congressional Operations
Automated Google Doc Creator for Meetings	2
GitHub Wiki Indexing Bookmarklet	2
Crosswalk Spreadsheet to Member Office Appropriations Submission Tool	3
Floor Schedule to iCal & Enhanced Congressional Schedule Aggregation	1
Congressional Job Board Aggregator	1
III. Leveraging AI for Content Enhancement & Analysis
CRS Report Accessibility & Integration	3
GAO Report Transformation & Dissemination	3
Automated Committee Hearing Transcripts & Summaries	2.5
Write My GovTrack Newsletter (AI-Powered Legislative Newsletter)	5
Witness Database with Proceeding Links & Testimony Summarization	5
IV. Predictive & Analytical Tools for Legislative Insight
Bills to Committee Referral Prediction	(not set)
Bill Delay Tracker	(not set)
Appropriations Notices & Deadlines Tracker	(not set)
Committee Funding Tracker & Visualization	(not set)
Line Up CBJs and Appropriations Committee Report Language	(not set)
V. Basic Utility Tools
Inflation Calculator for Google Sheets	1