Local-first investigation toolkit for journalists, researchers, and citizens.
Your data never leaves your machine. Works offline. Works everywhere.
One real government document → 45 entities, 166 relationships, extracted locally in seconds. No cloud. No API keys.
If you use Claude Code, install the OpenFOIA plugin — you get the CLI plus a built-in copilot that knows every command:
/plugin marketplace add JordanCoin/openfoia
/plugin install openfoia@openfoia
/foia-install
The plugin ships a skill that teaches Claude how to run FOIA investigations, plus slash commands for the core loop: /foia-search, /foia-investigate, /foia-graph, /foia-install. The last one bootstraps the CLI on your machine.
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JordanCoin/openfoia/main/install.sh | bashWorks on Linux, macOS, and Windows (WSL).
New to OpenFOIA? Run openfoia guide after installing.
File FOIA requests. Analyze documents. Extract entities. Build relationship graphs. Cross-reference against public databases. All locally, all offline, all purgeable.
openfoia init # 53 federal agencies pre-loaded
openfoia records search "EPA water" --source muckrock # search 46k+ completed FOIA requests
openfoia records search "Palantir" --source documentcloud # search 10M+ public documents
openfoia records fetch 3411897 --source documentcloud # pull full text into local database
openfoia records download 68490 --ingest # download + ingest response documents
openfoia analyze extract <doc-id># extract people, orgs, money, dates
openfoia analyze graph --name investigation --view # interactive graph + document reader
openfoia crossref # check entities against 6 public databases| PDF text extraction | Compiled 1.1MB binary. 99.5% accuracy across 480K chars. Zero dependencies. |
| Entity extraction | 4-tier: LLM → GLiNER → spaCy → Regex. 100% recall with a 2GB local model |
| Relationship graphs | Interactive graph with built-in document reader. Click entities to read source text with highlights |
| Cross-reference | MuckRock, DocumentCloud, OpenCorporates, SEC EDGAR, OpenSanctions, ICIJ Offshore Leaks |
| File requests | Email, fax (Twilio), physical mail (Lob) to 53 federal agencies |
| Data interchange | Import/export FollowTheMoney format (Aleph, OpenAleph, OpenSanctions) |
| Encrypted storage | SQLCipher AES-256. Decoy profile mode |
| Forensic purge | 3-pass overwrite, shell history scrub, free space fill |
| Portable mode | openfoia portable — everything stays on the USB, nothing on the host |
| Metadata stripping | Strips EXIF, PDF author, DOCX revision history on file and web-UI ingest. Email attachments and archived web pages are stored as received — see THREAT_MODEL.md |
A compiled 1.1MB binary extracts text directly from PDF structures — no OCR needed for born-digital documents. Uses a multi-level resolution cascade to handle broken fonts, missing encodings, and government form PDFs that other tools can't read.
99.5% accuracy across 480K characters in 50 test PDFs. 100% on every FOIA document tested. Zero runtime dependencies. Falls back to OCR (Tesseract) for scanned documents.
OpenFOIA calls the extractor with the large-document runtime profile by default (--profile large).
To control concurrency per process, set:
OPENFOIA_PDF_EXTRACT_MAX_WORKERS(for example4or8)- Optional profile override:
OPENFOIA_PDF_EXTRACT_PROFILE=standard|large
| Source | What | Auth |
|---|---|---|
| MuckRock | 46k+ completed FOIA requests with downloadable documents | Free |
| DocumentCloud | 10M+ public documents with pre-extracted text | Free |
| OpenCorporates | Global company ownership, directors, filings | Free |
| SEC EDGAR | US corporate filings | Free |
| OpenSanctions | Sanctions lists, politically exposed persons | Free (non-commercial) |
| ICIJ Offshore Leaks | Panama/Pandora/Paradise Papers (local CSV) | Free download |
| Guide | What |
|---|---|
| Journalist Guide | Full walkthrough — start here if you're new |
| Tails OS | Running from Tails for maximum privacy |
| USB Install | Encrypted USB portable setup |
| Air-Gapped | Offline deployment overview |
Everything runs on 127.0.0.1. Token-authenticated. Encrypted at rest (optional). Forensically purgeable. Works offline. Open source.
For sensitive investigations:openfoia serve --tor
Portable mode:openfoia portable — data stays on the USB, nothing touches the host.
When you're done:openfoia purge --secure --yes
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JordanCoin/openfoia/main/uninstall.sh | bashWriting this code is legal. The US DOJ stated in August 2025: "Merely writing code, without ill intent, is not a crime." Open source encryption is exempt from US export controls. The Tor Project, Signal, SecureDrop, and Tails set the precedent. More context.
Built by people who believe in freedom of information. Inspired by MuckRock, DocumentCloud, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
AGPL-3.0 — Keep it open.
"Democracy dies in darkness. FOIA is how we turn on the lights."