SEC EDGAR

Overview

EDGAR (Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval) is the U.S. SEC’s public repository of corporate filings. In the wizard post it is the archetypal input to the transparency pipeline — the “boring 30-line script that pulls a public filing” starts here. The post uses its structured XBRL company-facts JSON API at data.sec.gov.

Key Facts

• Endpoint used: https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyfacts/CIK{cik}.json, where the CIK (Central Index Key) is zero-padded to 10 digits. The post’s example fetches Apple Inc. (CIK 0000320193).
• Access etiquette / gotchas (from the post’s FAQ):
  • EDGAR requires a descriptive User-Agent with a contact email; omitting it returns 403.
  • Stay under ~10 requests/second — don’t hammer the API.
• Role in the pipeline: one of three named public data sources (with GLEIF and OpenCorporates); committing the fetched JSON to a public repo is “the first stone of an ‘open ledger.’”
• Reference: the post links the SEC EDGAR XBRL API documentation.

Connections

• Radical Transparency — EDGAR is the pipeline’s first node; the full ingest snippet lives on that page.
• GLEIF — a sibling open corporate-data source.

Sources

• Wizard Topples Capitalist Dominance Ingeniously — “Example 1: A Transparent Financial Ingest” and the EDGAR-403 FAQ.