SEC EDGAR INTELLIGENCE XBRL ARITHMETIC TESTED IMPLEMENTATION

How to access SEC filing intelligence from an AI agent.
Arithmetic facts, official endpoints & accession provenance.

A guide to querying official SEC EDGAR JSON endpoints, resolving 10-digit CIK identifiers, extracting comparable XBRL concepts, and eliminating LLM financial hallucination through strict arithmetic deltas.

Published: 2026-11-09 Status: Grounded Technical Guide Reading Time: 7 min

Direct Answer Summary

Autonomous agents can retrieve official corporate submission histories and XBRL financial facts directly from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's official data.sec.gov REST APIs. These endpoints require no API key, update as filings disseminate, and provide raw accounting concepts. To prevent AI hallucination, an agent must extract the underlying taxonomy tag (e.g. us-gaap/Assets), verify filing accession numbers, and calculate strict arithmetic subtractions rather than trusting generative text summaries.

1. Direct Public SEC EDGAR Endpoints

The SEC provides machine-readable JSON endpoints for corporate filings. Automated collectors must supply a 10-digit Central Index Key (CIK) with leading zeros. Example for Apple Inc. (CIK 0000320193):

bash · official sec edgar query 
# Retrieve corporate filing submission history
curl -H 'User-Agent: ResearchAgent research@example.com' \
  'https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK0000320193.json'

# Retrieve normalized XBRL company facts across all standard taxonomy tags
curl -H 'User-Agent: ResearchAgent research@example.com' \
  'https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyfacts/CIK0000320193.json'

The submissions payload contains company metadata, recent filing history, and pointers to older filing partitions. The companyfacts payload aggregates standard-taxonomy company facts (such as us-gaap and dei). Note that issuer-specific custom extension concepts are not aggregated into this generic endpoint.

2. SEC Fair-Access Ceilings & Network Rules

The SEC strictly enforces an aggregate ceiling of 10 requests per second per client IP. Automated requests must include a descriptive, user-identifiable User-Agent header (e.g. Sample Company AdminContact@.com). Endpoints do not support browser CORS. For massive multi-company historical pulls, the SEC mandates downloading nightly bulk ZIP files rather than repeatedly crawling per-company endpoints.

3. Six-Step Agent Verification Workflow

When an autonomous agent processes financial filings, it should execute this verified workflow:

STEP 1

Resolve Entity to CIK

Resolve the legal corporate entity or ticker to an authoritative 10-digit CIK. Preserve the exact ticker-to-CIK mapping used.

STEP 2

Ingest Submissions & Facts

Query submissions and companyfacts with a compliant User-Agent header, respecting the 10 req/sec limit.

STEP 3

Bind Accession Numbers & Period Frames

Every extracted fact must record its accession number (e.g. 0000320193-26-000106), form type (10-K), fiscal year, and end date.

STEP 4

Execute Arithmetic Deltas

Calculate strict mathematical subtractions between matching consecutive periods. Flag disclosure set additions and removals.

STEP 5

Isolate Restatements

Distinguish restated facts in subsequent filings from originally reported values. Do not compare non-comparable taxonomy tags.

STEP 6

State Explicit Limitations

Explicitly disclose that historical filings may contain omitted custom tags, and that arithmetic fact comparisons do not constitute investment advice.

4. Where ELYRAON Fits Today

ELYRAON maintains commercial data infrastructure designed specifically for this workflow:

  • Data Foundry SEC EDGAR Dataset: The dataset route is publicly listed, but its current availability, contents, coverage, and commercial terms were not independently verified for this guide.
  • Company Intelligence: The public company coverage API is currently unavailable: GET https://elyraon.com.co/api/v1/company/320193/coverage returned HTTP 502 on 2026-11-09. Do not rely on it for data retrieval.
  • Operational Status & Truth: A data owner previously reported historical ingestion gaps beyond 1997 Q3; this is not a current coverage measurement. Current dates, forms, lag, row counts, dataset availability, and commercial terms remain unverified. The public route authentication and response contract have not been verified.

5. Evaluating a Commercial Data Wrapper

Before purchasing commercial financial data APIs, test whether the provider:

  1. Supplies the raw SEC accession number for every single reported cell for audit verification.
  2. Distinguishes between restated facts and originally reported numbers.
  3. Clearly identifies when a company extended the taxonomy with custom tags that cannot be compared to peers.
  4. Refuses to evaluate filings where fewer than 5 comparable standard concepts exist, rather than hallucinating answers.

Next Steps for Systems Architects

Inspect our verified SEC EDGAR dataset schema, download the Apple 10-K sample fact report, or request scoped Parquet lake delivery.

Inspect SEC Parquet Lake → View Company Intelligence → Request Scoped Quote →