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Friday, May 29, 2026 · Texas Edition
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AgendaSearch
The Texas Local Government Meeting Database

Help & Tutorials

How to get the most out of AgendaSearch — search, filter, save, and stay alerted.

01 — Orientation

Getting started

AgendaSearch indexes meeting agendas, minutes, and notices from Texas cities, counties, and special districts. Everything is full-text searchable — including scanned PDFs that we OCR on ingest.

Search

Keyword across every document or every agenda line item.

Save

Save searches to re-run them, or to get emailed when new matches appear.

Browse

Scan the latest documents by entity or date — no query required.

02 — Basics

The search box

Type a keyword or phrase and press Enter. Matching text in each result is highlighted. Results sort by date (newest first) by default — switch to Relevance from the sort menu when you want the strongest matches on top.

property tax exemption ↵
Search input — keywords, phrases, or advanced syntax all work here.
What gets searched? In document mode, we search the entire body text of every document. In item mode, we search agenda item titles, descriptions, and the sections they sit under. See the next section for when to use which.
03 — Modes

Documents vs. Agenda Items

Two ways to look at the same corpus. Toggle at the top of the results list — your query and filters carry over.

Documents
Agenda Items
Mode toggle — sits above the search results.
Document mode

Each hit is a full document (agenda, minutes, notice). Best when you want the whole context — what was filed, by whom, on what date.

  • Returns one result per document
  • Snippet shows matched passage from body text
  • Filters: date, entity, body type
Item mode

Each hit is an individual agenda line item. Best for targeted topics — find every time a specific issue was voted on or discussed.

  • Returns one result per agenda item
  • Shows item title + parent section breadcrumb
  • Extra filters: segment type (action, consent, public hearing…), topic tags
04 — Syntax

Advanced query syntax

The search box accepts a small set of operators. They combine freely.

"exact phrase"
Exact phrase. Double quotes require the words to appear together in order.
e.g. "short-term rental"
-term
Exclude. Leading hyphen removes results containing that word.
e.g. zoning -variance
term*
Wildcard. Asterisk matches any characters. Great for word stems.
e.g. annex* matches annex, annexed, annexation
A AND B
Require both. Uppercase AND means both terms must appear.
e.g. budget AND "property tax"
A OR B
Either one. Uppercase OR matches documents with either term.
e.g. solar OR wind
A B C
Default behavior. Bare terms default to OR — any document matching at least one term, ranked by how many it matches.
Switch to all terms required in the search settings if you want stricter matching.
Not supported: parentheses for grouping, field prefixes (like title:), fuzzy matching (~), or boost operators. Keep queries flat and you'll get consistent results.
05 — Filters

Filters & chips

Active filters appear as removable chips below the search bar. Click the to drop one, or open the filter panel to tune.

Jan 2025 – Mar 2025 Austin City Council Agenda public_hearing
Active filter chips — click the × on any chip to remove it.
Date range

Limit by document date (the meeting date, not the index date). Quick chips for Last 7 / 30 / 90 days are right under the inputs.

Entity / Location

Pick one or more governmental bodies — a city council, commissioners court, ISD board, etc. Type to search; results live-update.

Body type

Agenda, Minutes, Notice, Packet, etc. Pick one.

Segment & tags item mode

In item mode only: narrow to specific segment types (action items, consent, public hearing, executive session) or topic tags we auto-extract.

06 — Bookmarks

Bookmarks

See a document you want to come back to? Click the bookmark icon on any result or document page. Your bookmarks are private and listed under the Bookmarks nav.

Agenda Austin City Council · Mar 14, 2025
Regular Meeting Agenda
…discussion and possible action on property tax exemption ordinance amendments…
The bookmark icon lives in the corner of every result card.
07 — Save & alert

Saved searches & alerts

A saved search remembers your query and every active filter. Turn on the alert toggle and we'll email you each morning if new documents match — no repeat matches, only new ones since your last check.

Austin — property tax exemption
"property tax exemption" Austin City Council Last 30 days
Email alert on Last checked today, 9:00 AM UTC
A saved search with its alert enabled — toggle flips to turn emails on or off.
How often do alerts run? Once a day, shortly after 9:00 UTC (that's 4am Central in winter, 5am in summer). If nothing new matches, no email is sent — silence means no news, not a bug.
08 — Browse

Browse

Not looking for something specific? Browse lists every document by recency — use the same filters to narrow by entity, date, or body type. It's how to keep tabs on a single city or county without needing a keyword.

09 — LLM access

Connect AgendaSearch to your LLM

Paid subscribers can plug AgendaSearch directly into any LLM client that speaks the Model Context Protocol — Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, ChatGPT custom GPTs, and others. Once connected, you can ask the LLM things like "find recent action items about water rate increases in Plano" and it queries the library on its own.

1. Generate an API key

Go to Account → LLM Access and click New Key. Give it a label like "Claude Desktop laptop" so you can revoke individual keys later. The full key is shown once — copy it immediately.

2. Configure your client

Claude Desktop — open Settings → Developer → Edit Config and paste:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "agendasearch": {
      "transport": "http",
      "url": "https://agendasearch.com/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer as_live_..." }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code (CLI):

claude mcp add --transport http agendasearch \
  https://agendasearch.com/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer as_live_..."

Cursor / Windsurf — same JSON shape as Claude Desktop, in the IDE's MCP settings panel.

3. What the LLM can do

The MCP server exposes six read-only tools:

  • search_documents — full-text search across the document library
  • search_agenda_items — search individual extracted agenda items (action items, public hearings, etc.)
  • get_document — fetch one document's full text + metadata
  • get_agenda_items — fetch all extracted items for a document, in order
  • list_entities — discover entity IDs to filter on
  • list_taxonomies — body types, doc types, item segment types, and tag slugs

4. Limits & security

  • Each key is rate-limited (about 200 calls/hour, 2,000/day) to keep the search backend healthy.
  • Keys never expire automatically. Rotate them periodically and revoke any you no longer need.
  • Treat keys like passwords. If you accidentally commit one to a public repo, revoke it immediately and generate a new one.
  • If your subscription lapses, all your keys stop working until you renew.
10 — Tips

Power tips

1
Use item mode for targeted topics. Searching "short-term rental" in document mode returns agendas that merely mention the term. In item mode, you get only the specific line items that discuss it.
2
Combine wildcards with exact phrases. "short-term rental*" catches short-term rentals, rental permits, etc. without expanding your query wildly.
3
Save broad, filter narrow. A good saved search is a broad keyword pattern with tight filters (entity + body type). That way, you get emailed whenever a specific council discusses your topic — not every time anyone in Texas does.
4
Exclude to focus. If one entity or topic floods your results, add -word or drop them from the entity filter. budget -school finds budget mentions outside school-district documents.

Still stuck?

Tell us what you're trying to find and we'll either point you to a feature or build a better one.

Contact us