Ocas Reach

ocas-reach: Live World-Data Query Engine

Reach is the system's sensory layer for verified ground truth. It answers "what is" — not "what was," not "what should be," not "what might be." Each registered source is a deterministic connector: structured query in, structured response with citation out. No synthesis. No interpretation. Reach returns the fact; downstream skills synthesize.

When to Use

• The user asks about real-time external data with a known authoritative source (USGS, NOAA, FDA, FRED, Congress, Redfin, Open-Meteo, NASA, Wikidata, etc.)
• The user wants a factual lookup ("what's the current GDP figure," "any recent FDA recalls of ," "is 123 Main St for sale," "papers about transformers since 2022")
• The agent needs a citation-bearing fact to ground a downstream response
• The request is a specific entity, measurement, or list, not an open-ended exploration

For example, when the user asks "any recent FDA recalls of peanut butter," Reach queries the FDA API and returns the verbatim recall list with citations.

When NOT to Use

• Open-ended research over many sources → use Sift
• Investigating a person → use Scout
• Detecting patterns in historical signals — query Chronicle directly
• Requests requiring summarization or synthesis (Reach returns the fact; the agent or another skill does the writing)

Responsibility Boundary

Reach owns: real-time external API calls, source-specific connector logic, source registry, query/response logging, monthly quota tracking, account ledger.

Reach does not own:

• Web research over open content (Sift)
• Person investigations (Scout)
• Knowledge graph queries
• Pattern analysis over journals
• Long-form synthesis or briefing (Vesper)
• Inbox / messaging (Dispatch)

A query that needs synthesis after fetching is a two-step request: Reach returns the fact, the agent or downstream skill synthesizes.

Optional Skill Cooperation

When present:

• Vesper may include Reach lookups in morning briefings (overnight USGS earthquake summary, weather, FRED indicator deltas).
• Sift may invoke Reach as one of many sources during deep research.
• Scout may invoke Reach for property records and SEC filings during contact enrichment.
• Custodian may verify a Reach quota state when triaging API rate-limit issues.

Reach functions normally when none of these are present.

Source Registry

The authoritative source list lives in scripts/sources.yml (54 sources). Browsable index: references/sources/index.md. See references/credential-files.md for credential storage, references/account_provisioning.md for account registration.

Account Creation

Reach is explicitly authorized to register accounts at sources requiring them. See references/account_provisioning.md for the registration playbook. Not authorized to: pay for tiers, use different identity, accept arbitration waivers, register outside sources.yml.

Decision Model

8-step query pipeline: identify source → validate auth → check quota → build query → execute → log usage → write journal → return verbatim. No silent fall-through to alternative sources.

Execution

CLI via python3 scripts/reach.py. See references/sources/index.md for command reference and references/usage_tracking.md for quota management.

Adding a New Source

See references/source-evaluation-framework.md for the evaluation checklist and references/sources/_template.md for the source reference template.

Legacy Sources

katzilla and property_lookup predate the v3 registry. References: references/katzilla.md, references/property_lookup.md.

Methodology Notes

Reach/Sift boundary (Jun 12, 2026) — Reach owns: sources.yml, API connectors, MCP connections, quota tracking (CSAPI + all Reach-registered APIs), discovered APIs catalog (references/discovered-apis.md). Sift owns: research synthesis, web_search, entity extraction. NEVER manages own MCP/quota. Sift delegates to Reach for factual anchors via reach.csapi_check/increment and reach.query rapidapi.

RapidAPI is general-purpose marketplace (Jun 12, 2026) — 203 endpoints (finance, crypto, news, geo, weather, security, social, travel). NOT "local business search." Route via reach.query rapidapi. When one skill uses a narrow slice of a tool, don't let that define the tool for all skills. Always check canonical source/definition of a multi-skill shared tool.

ExchangeRate source doc is STALE (2026-07-24) — sources.yml declares exchangerate: with auth: none, but https://api.exchangerate.host now returns code 101 missing_access_key (requires access_key). Treat as effectively key-required until the source doc is updated to declare an env_var. Always live-verify a source's auth requirement rather than trusting the registry.

Support File Map

Recovery Behavior

This skill implements the recovery contract from spec-ocas-recovery.md.

• Evidence: Every query run writes an evidence record to {agent_root}/commons/data/ocas-reach/evidence.jsonl, including no-op runs. The not_activity_reason field is mandatory when no side effects occur.
• Gap detection: On every wake, checks the evidence log. If gap exceeds 24h for update cron, logs gap_detected.
• Degraded mode: When external APIs are unavailable, logs degraded: <api> and returns partial results with error envelope.
• Log compaction: Evidence and usage logs older than 30 days compacted. Last 7 days retained.

Storage Layout

See references/storage-layout.md for the full directory structure.

Journal Outputs

Every reach.query run emits an Observation Journal. Account-registration runs (when Reach signs up at a new source) emit an Action Journal because side effects are involved (form submission, key storage).

Journal payload includes: source, action, params, outcome (success / auth_missing / source_error / parse_error / quota_blocked), and result_meta (extracted meta / citation / quality / http_status from the response — not the bulk payload).

Background tasks

Source Discovery (reach:api-mine)

The reach:api-mine cron job scans all session transcripts (not just research) for sites, services, databases, and archives that are used or needed by any skill. For each site found, it evaluates:

• Does it have an API? — Check for programmatic access (REST, GraphQL, etc.)
• Can I access it? — Free/freemium/paid? API key required? Account signup possible?
• What data does it provide? — What endpoints exist? What can you search/retrieve?
• Does it belong as a preferred source? — Is the API meaningfully better than the current access method (web scraping, SearXNG, browser) for the skill that found it?

A site is only cataloged if it has a confirmed working API, the data is useful to an active skill/workflow, and the API is better than the current approach. Deduplicate against both sources.yml and references/discovered-apis.md.

Catalog: references/discovered-apis.md — fully evaluated candidates ready for integration into sources.yml.

Key principle: Not a general search index. Only sites that specific skills already use or need, where an API would reduce friction vs. the current method.

reach.init registers reach:update on first invocation. No operational background tasks beyond self-update — Reach is purely reactive to user/agent queries.

Session-retention limitation (Jun 18, 2026) — The session database (via session_search) only retains recent sessions (typically 48-72h of FTS5-indexed content). Older research sessions — even those with significant API discoveries — become unsearchable once they age out. This means:

• The api-mine cron can only discover APIs from sessions that are still in the active session store
• If a session produced API discoveries but was compacted/aged out before the cron ran, those discoveries are lost
• Mitigation: When a session produces an API discovery, immediately write it to references/discovered-apis.md (don't rely on the cron to catch it later)
• A "0 new APIs" result from the cron is NORMAL and expected when sessions are current — it means the catalog is up-to-date, not that the cron is broken
• Cron-skew (Jun 27, 2026): During periods when the agent runs primarily as cron jobs, there may be zero interactive sessions to mine. [SILENT] is correct — see references/api-mine-cron-notes.md § Cron-Skew.

Self-Update

See references/self-update-reach.md.

Validation rules

A query is valid when:

• source is registered in sources.yml
• The action is supported by the source
• Required env var is present (or auth: optional)
• The daily/monthly quota has remaining budget

Otherwise return an explicit error envelope and write the failure to usage.jsonl with the appropriate status. Do not fall through to a different source silently — the operator will not know which source actually answered.

Gotchas

See references/gotchas.md for all operational pitfalls including quota exhaustion, User-Agent requirements, demo mode, rate-limit handling, account creation, non-commercial sources, and silent fall-through prevention.

Ontology types

Reach does not extract entities or emit Signals to Chronicle. It is a query passthrough — entity extraction from returned data is the responsibility of the calling skill.

OKRs

See references/okrs.md.

Visibility

public