How Advisor identifies law
Every answer names the law it comes from precisely enough to find again: the title, the compilation, and the provision within it. Real values below are from the Privacy Act 1988, section 13K, on 10 October 2026.
| Identifier | Example | What it names |
|---|---|---|
| Title id | C2004A03712 | The title, across all its compilations: the register id of the title as made |
| Register id (compilation id) | C2026C00227 | One registered compilation. The Federal Register issues a new one each time a title is recompiled |
| Compilation number | 104 | The number printed on that compilation's cover, recorded against its register id where the Federal Register assigns one |
| eId | sec_13k | A provision within the compilation, in the Akoma Ntoso naming scheme |
| Component | main | The part of the document the eId sits in: main, or a schedule |
/l/ address | /l/C2004A03712/compilation_104/main/sec_13k | One provision of one compilation, as a link |
legislation_id and provision_id in responses are Advisor's own record ids. Tools accept a title id or a register id wherever they take legislation_id.
The register id is the key
One register id names one compilation and one text. A compilation number is what a reader checks against the printed cover, so Advisor records it, but the register id is what anchors an address to its text. Where the Federal Register later corrects a compilation number, the old number is kept, so a link made with it still resolves.
The /l/ address
get_provision_text returns the address in link.url. Put it after https://advisor.lawatlas.ai to give a reader a citation they can follow:
https://advisor.lawatlas.ai/l/C2004A03712/compilation_104/main/sec_13k
The address needs no sign-in, because a citation is followed by whoever holds it. Its third segment can be the compilation number or the register id; both resolve to the same compilation.
A program can ask what an address means today, without a credential:
GET https://advisor.lawatlas.ai/api/resolve?link=/l/C2004A03712/compilation_104/main/sec_13k
The answer's status is current when the address names the provision in the compilation Advisor serves. Other answers say what changed: superseded_unchanged or superseded_changed (a newer compilation exists, and the provision's text is or is not the same), superseded_unverified, not_in_current, ambiguous, title_not_in_force, no_text_held, title_not_indexed, expression_unknown or title_unknown. Each comes with the title's status block.
How an eId is formed
A section is sec_<number>, never prefixed by its Part or Division, because section numbers run continuously through an Act. Everything beneath a section chains from its parent: sec_601ea__subsec_2. A container carries its own ancestry, because many Divisions in one Act share a number.
- Where two provisions would share an eId, neither receives one. Advisor does not invent a designation the document does not print.
- A provision without an eId has no
/l/address. Itsprovision_idstill identifies it in Advisor, and the title's Federal Register link still applies. link.verified_bysays what checked the provision's position:toc(the compilation's own table of contents) ornumbering(distinct numbers among siblings in Advisor's own record, a weaker check).
as_at
A date asks for the text in force on that date. Advisor holds the text of one compilation of each title, the current one, so a date outside it returns VERSION_NOT_HELD, naming what is held. Earlier compilations are on the Federal Register.