SEC EDGAR

Overview

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) publishes free, no-auth JSON endpoints for every reporting company on its EDGAR system: a ticker-to-CIK directory, a recent-filings index, and the full set of XBRL ("companyfacts") financial concepts a company has reported. This skill documents how Vibe-Trading fetches that data through the bundled sec_edgar_client transport and the get_sec_filings agent tool.

This is the fetch skill — it covers how to get filing-index rows, document URLs, and us-gaap metric series out of EDGAR. The separate edgar-sec-filings skill is the methodology layer (how to read a 10-K, score insider activity, interpret 8-K items); for any actual data retrieval it delegates here.

Scope is the United States only. EDGAR has no coverage of A-shares, HK, or other non-U.S. markets — route those through tushare / yfinance / akshare instead.

Link convention: every link below that points into references/ is written relative to this document (references/...) — the form GitHub resolves when someone opens the file in a browser. The read_file tool resolves the same string against the skill that owns it, so the agent and a human reader reach one file. Keep the relative form when adding new docs, and keep reference paths unique across skills: a path two skills both carry is reported as ambiguous rather than guessed.

Quick Start

Preferred path — the get_sec_filings tool (read-only, throttled, returns strict JSON):

{ "ticker": "AAPL", "form": "10-K", "limit": 5 }

{ "ticker": "MSFT", "metric": "Revenues", "limit": 8 }

The tool resolves the ticker to a CIK, fetches the filing index (optionally filtered by form), and — when metric is set — also pulls the XBRL series for that us-gaap concept. See sec-edgar/references/get_sec_filings_tool.md for the full parameter and envelope contract.

Script path — call the sec_edgar_client transport directly when you need raw JSON the tool does not surface (e.g. company address, all units of a concept):

from backtest.loaders.sec_edgar_client import cik_for, get_submissions, get_company_facts

cik = cik_for("AAPL")            # "0000320193", or None if not in the SEC table
submissions = get_submissions(cik)   # recent-filings index + company metadata
facts = get_company_facts(cik)       # all reported XBRL concepts

A runnable end-to-end example lives at sec-edgar/scripts/sec_filings_example.py.

Parameter & Format Notes

• Ticker: U.S. equity symbol, case-insensitive (AAPL, msft). Resolved to a CIK via the SEC company-tickers table; an unlisted ticker returns an error envelope (tool) or None (cik_for).
• CIK: the SEC Central Index Key, normalized to a zero-padded 10-digit string (320193 → "0000320193"). The submissions and companyfacts endpoints require the padded form; document URLs use the un-padded form.
• Form: SEC form type, case-insensitive (10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, DEF 14A, 4). Omit to return all recent forms.
• Metric: an XBRL us-gaap concept name (Revenues, NetIncomeLoss, Assets, StockholdersEquity). Case-sensitive — these are exact taxonomy element names.
• Dates: SEC returns ISO YYYY-MM-DD strings (e.g. 2023-09-30).
• Return shape: the tool returns a JSON-string envelope; the client returns decoded JSON (dict).

Reference Docs

• sec_edgar_client transport — cik_for, get_submissions, get_company_facts, CIK padding, throttle bucket, contact User-Agent.
• get_sec_filings tool — parameters, success/error envelope, filings[] and metric field shapes.
• Endpoints & rate limits — the three public endpoints, secid/CIK rules, fair-access policy, env overrides.
• Common forms & XBRL concepts — frequently used form types and us-gaap concept names.

Scripts

• End-to-end fetch example — ticker → CIK → recent 10-Ks → a metric series, using the bundled client.

Notes

• Free, no API key: EDGAR is public. The only requirement is a descriptive User-Agent carrying a contact address; the client ships a compliant default and honors the VIBE_TRADING_SEC_UA override.
• Rate-limited by IP: the SEC throttles per source IP and temporarily blocks clients that burst without a contact UA. Every request routes through the shared backtest.loaders._http throttle under the "sec" host bucket (≈0.12s spacing floor, overridable via VIBE_TRADING_SEC_MIN_INTERVAL). Do not bypass the client with raw requests loops.
• United States only: a non-U.S. symbol will not resolve to a CIK.
• Transport, not a backtest loader: sec_edgar_client is a thin REST client, not a DataLoaderProtocol. There is no source: "sec_edgar" backtest mode — EDGAR feeds the get_sec_filings tool, not the bar-loading layer.
• Reporting lag: filings appear after the company submits; XBRL companyfacts trail the filing. Insider (Form 4) and 13F latency caveats are covered in the edgar-sec-filings methodology skill.
• Research only: this data supports research and does not constitute investment advice.