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gao_recommendations

GAO recommendations

One row per recommendation per agency that GAO's recommendations database has listed as open: the publication it comes from, the agency it is made to, its text, GAO's status and priority designation as last listed, GAO's comments on the agency's progress, and the topic it is filed under. Read once a day through Zyte by the gao-recommendations rollup and SpicyDocs' export reader, which refuses a changed header, and kept as an accumulator: a recommendation that leaves the export is marked, never deleted. GAO numbers each recommendation within its product and states the number at the end of the text, so recommendation_id is keyed on that number (with the publication, kind and agency) and, where no number is stated, on the text; the number is its own column. listed_open false means only that the latest export does not list it: usually a closure, but an edit to its number, text or agency reads the same. report_id joins gao_reports. GAO's own per-department priority counts are its Priority Open Recommendations: <department> letters in gao_reports (title ILIKE 'Priority Open Recommendations%'); a count over priority here is bounded by this table's window. The director's phone GAO lists is deliberately not published, and the retained source evidence has it emptied. All columns are stored as VARCHAR.

Coverage. Window. The recommendations open on any day this table has read, from the first daily read on. Each run reads GAO's open-recommendations export whole, which lists every recommendation GAO still counts open, back to products issued in 2001 (publication_date). The window starts at the first daily read, min(first_seen); a recommendation closed before it never appears. One closed later stays, with listed_open false and the last_seen date of the last export that listed it; GAO's closing status is not in the export, so why it left is unknown here. first_seen is when this table first saw a recommendation open, not when GAO made it. (measured 2026-09-28)

  • Parquet file: gao_recommendations.parquet
  • MCP query_sql support: Configured; requires an available artifact.
  • Publication status: Not established by this schema page or its measurement date.
  • Row count: Not stated here; the MCP describe_table reply gives the live count under publication.
Column Type Description
recommendation_id VARCHAR The key, rule gao-recommendation-key/1: a digest of the lowercased publication number, the kind, the number GAO states and the agency; where the text states no number, of the lowercased publication number, the agency and the text, whitespace runs folded and case folded.
report_id VARCHAR The publication number lowercased: the GAO product id gao_reports is keyed on.
publication_number VARCHAR The publication number exactly as GAO spells it, such as GAO-26-108061.
publication_title VARCHAR The publication's title as the export states it, a line break GAO left in it included.
publication_date VARCHAR The date GAO issued the publication, as an ISO date.
director_name VARCHAR The GAO director or directors the export names as the publication's contact, several joined by commas as GAO writes them, so a comma can also be part of one name (as in a suffix); NULL where it names none.
agency VARCHAR The agency the recommendation is made to, as GAO's addressee label spells it, with no parent department (U.S. Coast Guard is not nested under DHS); a generic label (Office of the Director, Office of the Under Secretary, Other) names different agencies on different publications, so read publication_title beside it. A recommendation made to several agencies is one row for each.
recommendation VARCHAR The recommendation's text in full, the number GAO states at its end included.
recommendation_kind VARCHAR Which of GAO's numbered series the text's closing tag names: recommendation to an agency, or matter for Congress to consider; NULL where the text states no number.
recommendation_number VARCHAR The number GAO states for it within its publication and kind, as GAO writes it; NULL where it states none.
status VARCHAR GAO's status for it as last listed: Open or Open--Partially Addressed.
priority VARCHAR Whether GAO designates it a priority recommendation, as last listed: true or false.
comments VARCHAR GAO's comments on the agency's progress as last listed, untrimmed; NULL where it states none.
topics VARCHAR The topic the export files it under, as last listed; NULL where it states none.
first_seen VARCHAR The date the status-as-of stamp states on the first export read that listed it: when this table first saw it open, not when GAO made it.
last_seen VARCHAR The date the status-as-of stamp states on the latest export read that listed it.
listed_open VARCHAR Whether the latest export read lists it under this key. false says only that it is no longer listed: GAO closing it is the usual cause, but an edit to its number, text or agency, or a defective export, reads the same.
status_as_of VARCHAR The export's own status-as-of stamp, verbatim, from the latest export that listed it; GAO labels it EST year round, though it is Eastern local time. Text in GAO's spelling (Sep 30, 2026 at 1:18 PM EST), not sortable: last_seen carries the same stamp's date in ISO form, so order and filter by it.