SpicyRegs is an open-source project helping people search, analyze, and understand federal regulatory dockets and public comments. Civic Hack DC Part 2 brings users, policy experts, designers, and technologists together to move from prototype to production.
Organizations: you can also sponsor or partner with us.
You do not need to code. We are looking for people who understand the real workflows, questions, and frustrations around regulatory dockets and public comments.
SpicyRegs
The ongoing open-source project.
Civic Hack DC: Part 2
The September 12, 2026 build event.
Product owners & users
Make sure we build the right tools.
Public comments shape federal rules — but dockets and comments are hard to search, compare, summarize, and understand.
The hardest part is not just building software. It is building the right thing. That takes the people who actually do this work.
Open-source tools for working with regulatory dockets and public comment data from federal rulemaking — for anyone who needs to understand what the public is saying, who is participating, what themes are emerging, and how comments connect to policy decisions.
“I need to understand the major themes in thousands of comments.”
“I want to know who is commenting — individuals, nonprofits, companies, trade groups, or campaigns.”
“I want to compare arguments across a docket.”
“I need to find repeated or coordinated comments.”
“I want to explain a rulemaking issue to a broader audience.”
“I want to test whether an AI summary is actually trustworthy.”
Sound like your work?
Share a use caseA hands-on civic hackathon focused on building open-source MVP tools for public comment data, regulatory analysis, and real-world civic use.
PART 1
Explored what could be built.
PART 2
Builds what can actually be used.
Teams work from the original Civic Hack DC problem statements and the SpicyRegs foundation. The difference this time: real users, advisors, and product-owner judges are involved from the start. Real data. Real workflows. Real feedback.
Event details
Our judges do more than score demos at the end. A judge can work alongside a team during the day, helping them understand the real problem — we call that a product-owner judge. You do not need to be technical — you need to know the work.
Ideal for advocacy organizations, researchers, policy teams, journalists, public servants, legal experts, academics, nonprofits, and community groups.
Help shape a toolYou help a team answer:
Who is this tool for?
What work does it need to support?
What is painful about the current process?
What would make a prototype useful enough to use again?
What would make an AI-generated answer trustworthy?
What should continue after the hackathon?
Help us build tools people would actually use. There is a role for you.
I work with dockets or comments
Share your workflow, questions, and pain points. Help teams build something useful.
I can judge or advise
Review demos and ask hard questions — or go deeper and guide a team as a product-owner judge.
I want to attend
Join a team — build, design, research, test, document, or help shape an MVP.
I can sponsor or partner
Support the event with funding, venue, food, outreach, cloud credits, data resources, or implementation support.
I am a builder
Developers, designers, data scientists, AI/ML practitioners, and product managers are welcome.