Bill Bot Designer

Overview

The Bill Bot Designer is a tool for creating automated bots that monitor and publish legislative updates from the Open Civic Data Blockchain. These bots can be configured to watch specific bills, jurisdictions, or events and automatically post updates to various platforms like Bluesky, Twitter, RSS feeds, or custom webhooks.

Why Bots?

🤖 Automated Monitoring: Bots can continuously watch for legislative changes without human intervention
📢 Multi-Platform Publishing: Single bot configuration can publish to multiple platforms simultaneously
🎯 Targeted Alerts: Organizations can create highly specific feeds for their constituents
⚡ Real-Time Updates: Instant notifications when important legislative events occur
🔄 Consistent Formatting: Standardized message formats across all platforms

Bot Architecture

Event-Driven Design

Bots operate on an event-driven architecture, listening to the append-only log of legislative events:

Legislative Event → Blockchain Log → Bot Filter → Message Generation → Platform Publishing

Bot Components

Event Listener: Monitors the blockchain log for new events
Filter Engine: Applies rules to determine if an event should trigger the bot
Message Generator: Creates platform-specific messages from event data
Publisher: Sends messages to configured platforms
Rate Limiter: Ensures compliance with platform API limits

Configuration Examples

Basic Bill Monitor Bot

name: "Illinois Bill Monitor"
description: "Monitors all Illinois bills for key actions"

# Event filtering
filters:
  - jurisdiction: "country:us/state:il"
  - event_types: ["bill_introduced", "bill_passed", "bill_vetoed"]
  - keywords: ["environment", "education", "healthcare"]

# Message template
message_template: |
  📋 {bill.identifier}: {bill.title}
  🏛️ {action.description}
  📅 {action.date}
  🔗 {bill.url}

# Publishing platforms
platforms:
  - type: "bluesky"
    account: "@legislative-alerts.bsky.social"
    rate_limit: "10/hour"
  
  - type: "rss"
    feed_url: "https://example.com/il-bills.xml"
    update_frequency: "immediate"

Specialized Committee Bot

name: "Senate Appropriations Monitor"
description: "Tracks all bills going through Senate Appropriations"

filters:
  - jurisdiction: "country:us/state:il"
  - committee: "Senate Appropriations"
  - event_types: ["bill_referred", "bill_hearing_scheduled", "bill_vote"]

message_template: |
  💰 Senate Appropriations Update
  📋 {bill.identifier}: {bill.title}
  📊 Fiscal Impact: {bill.fiscal_note.summary}
  📅 Next Action: {next_action.description}
  🗓️ Date: {next_action.date}

platforms:
  - type: "webhook"
    url: "https://api.example.com/appropriations-webhook"
    headers:
      Authorization: "Bearer {webhook_token}"
  
  - type: "email"
    recipients: ["budget@example.org", "finance@example.org"]
    subject: "Senate Appropriations Alert: {bill.identifier}"

Constituent Alert Bot

name: "District 5 Constituent Alerts"
description: "Alerts constituents about bills affecting their district"

filters:
  - jurisdiction: "country:us/state:il"
  - sponsor_district: "5"
  - event_types: ["bill_introduced", "bill_passed", "bill_signed"]

message_template: |
  🏠 District 5 Update
  📋 {bill.identifier}: {bill.title}
  👤 Sponsored by: {sponsor.name}
  📝 Summary: {bill.summary}
  📅 Status: {bill.status}
  🔗 Learn more: {bill.url}

platforms:
  - type: "sms"
    phone_numbers: ["+15551234567", "+15559876543"]
    provider: "twilio"
  
  - type: "slack"
    channel: "#district-5-alerts"
    workspace: "example-org"

Platform Integrations

Bluesky

Rate Limit: 10 posts per hour
Character Limit: 300 characters
Features: Rich text, links, images
Authentication: App password required

Twitter/X

Rate Limit: 300 tweets per 3 hours
Character Limit: 280 characters
Features: Text, images, polls
Authentication: OAuth 2.0

RSS Feeds

Format: RSS 2.0 or Atom
Update Frequency: Configurable
Features: Full text, categories, enclosures
Hosting: GitHub Pages, custom server

Webhooks

Method: POST
Content-Type: application/json
Authentication: Bearer token or API key
Retry Logic: Exponential backoff

Email

Providers: SMTP, SendGrid, Mailgun
Templates: HTML and plain text
Attachments: PDF bills, documents
Rate Limits: Varies by provider

SMS

Providers: Twilio, AWS SNS
Character Limit: 160 characters
Features: Text only
Cost: Per message

Advanced Features

Conditional Logic

filters:
  - jurisdiction: "country:us/state:il"
  - conditions:
      - if: "bill.fiscal_impact > 1000000"
        then: "priority = high"
      - if: "bill.sponsor.party == 'Republican'"
        then: "include_opposition_analysis = true"

Message Templates with Variables

message_template: |
  {#if bill.fiscal_impact > 1000000}💰 HIGH COST BILL {/if}
  📋 {bill.identifier}: {bill.title}
  👤 Sponsor: {bill.sponsors[0].name} ({bill.sponsors[0].party})
  📊 Fiscal Impact: ${bill.fiscal_impact:,.0f}
  📅 {action.date | date_format: "%B %d, %Y"}
  🔗 {bill.url}
  
  {#if bill.summary}
  📝 {bill.summary | truncate: 200}
  {/if}

Scheduled Publishing

publishing:
  schedule:
    - time: "09:00"
      timezone: "America/Chicago"
      days: ["monday", "tuesday", "wednesday", "thursday", "friday"]
    - time: "17:00"
      timezone: "America/Chicago"
      days: ["monday", "tuesday", "wednesday", "thursday", "friday"]
  
  batch_size: 5
  delay_between_posts: "30s"

Analytics and Monitoring

analytics:
  track_engagement: true
  platforms:
    - bluesky
    - twitter
    - webhook
  
  metrics:
    - posts_sent
    - engagement_rate
    - error_rate
    - response_time
  
  alerts:
    - condition: "error_rate > 0.05"
      action: "email_admin"
    - condition: "no_posts_24h"
      action: "slack_alert"