Bootstrap & Ordinances — Help Center
How ordinance discovery works, when chat unlocks, and how to fix a wrong-source ingest.
How does ordinance discovery work?
When you create a project, PrecisionDocs looks for the municipality's published code in parallel across the major code-publishing platforms - Municode, American Legal, eCode360, EnCodePlus, Code Publishing, MunicipalCodeOnline, and CivicPlus-hosted code pages - and falls back to open-web search when the jurisdiction publishes somewhere else.
Every candidate discovery finds, on a platform or through open-web fallback, goes through the same check before anything is indexed: is this the code of the municipality that governs your parcel? That is what stops discovery from indexing a candidate that looks right and is not - a sanitary district, school district, park district, fire district, or water-reclamation district whose URL happens to carry your city's name.
The wizard checks an ordinance URL you paste there too and shows the result under the field. Read that result and do what it says. Check the municipality and the slot yourself before you continue: pasting a URL counts as choosing it, so the wizard does not reliably catch a URL for the wrong municipality, one pasted into the wrong slot, or one that is not the governing code at all. If the wrong source turns out to be indexed, see I think the wrong ordinance source was indexed. What now?
Getting the source wrong degrades a project permanently, so the check errs toward refusing a candidate rather than indexing a wrong one. If discovery cannot find a source it can stand behind, the project says so instead of indexing a guess.
How do I add supplemental ordinance, zoning, or code sources?
Use supplemental sources when the answer lives outside the main municipal or county code set.
Common supplemental sources:
- Standalone zoning ordinance
- Land-development code
- Subdivision regulations
- Stormwater or drainage manual
- Design standards or overlay district PDF
- County floodplain, well, septic, or access rules that are published separately
Where to add them:
- During project creation, add known supplemental sources in the wizard before bootstrap starts.
- On Project Home, the sources card carries two icon buttons: the link button pastes a source URL, and the upload button beside it adds a PDF.
- In chat, paste an official URL and ask the agent to ingest it for the project.
- If you do not know the URL, ask the agent to find and index the relevant ordinance source, then review the result.
Supplemental sources are reference sources by default. Do not mark one as governing unless the app indicates the governing source is missing and you are confident the supplemental source is the controlling code.
Best prompt: The stormwater rules are in a separate county drainage manual. Find or ingest that source, then answer using it with citations.
Why is project setup waiting for the county, and what if it seems stuck?
Chat waits for both the municipal and county code to finish indexing, because county codes own subdivision rules, well and septic standards, stormwater detention requirements, and floodplain regulations in many jurisdictions. Answering "what are the setback requirements?" correctly often needs the city zoning code and the county subdivision regulations.
What you will see on the project home dial:
- While the municipal code is done and the county is still indexing, it keeps moving through the high 80s and low 90s. That is the county pipeline at work, not a stall.
- When both finish it advances to 100% and chat unlocks.
- If the county source cannot be found or the publisher returns nothing, it caps at 95% and chat unlocks anyway. Answers and reports that need county rules will say so.
If it looks stuck:
- Give it time first. A large municipal code plus a county can take 5-15 minutes.
- While setup is still running, the life-ring button in the top-right of the Bootstrap card opens a support form. If you already know the municipal source is wrong, send the correct URL there and the team picks it up.
- Do not start a second project. Once setup stops, the Bootstrap card offers Repair municipality source or Repair county source for a scope that failed - each takes a corrected URL, previews it, and re-runs indexing for that scope on its own.
Do not judge ordinance answers while either pipeline is still incomplete.
I think the wrong ordinance source was indexed. What now?
A source that indexed cleanly but names the wrong jurisdiction means setup already finished, so start on the ordinance sources card on Project Home: open the scope that is wrong and use Edit sources; its footer carries Add source, which opens Add source by link for the code you believe governs the parcel. To have the wrong source itself corrected, email info@precisiondocs.ai with the municipality, county, and state - PrecisionDocs scopes ordinance sources by municipality and county, so two same-name jurisdictions are treated separately.
While setup is still running, degraded, or failed, there is a second route: the life-ring button in the top-right of the Bootstrap card on the project home hero opens a support form that takes two optional URLs:
- Suggested municipality URL - the correct municipal code source, if the discovered one is wrong.
- Suggested county URL - the same for the county.
Neither URL is ingested automatically, and neither goes through the wizard's jurisdiction check. Each is checked as a public web address - if one is not, the form refuses the whole request so you can correct it - and both then reach the team alongside your project's current ordinance state, for someone to review before your project changes. So name the municipality, county, and state explicitly, and give the URL you believe governs the parcel.
Rate limit: 3 requests per hour. The limit is shared by everyone sending from the same network connection, so an office on one connection can reach it together. If you hit it, contact info@precisiondocs.ai directly.
What happens when I paste an ordinance URL into the project wizard?
The wizard checks an ordinance URL as soon as you paste it - there is no separate button to press - and shows the result under the field.
- Read that result and do what it says.
- The wizard may move a pasted URL to the other slot and will say so in the result, so check where it ended up.
- Check the municipality and the slot yourself before you continue. Pasting a URL counts as choosing it, so the wizard does not reliably catch a URL for the wrong municipality, one pasted into the wrong slot, or one that is not the governing code at all.
- If the wrong source turns out to be indexed, see I think the wrong ordinance source was indexed. What now?
Getting the governing source wrong degrades a project permanently, which is why the municipality and the slot are worth the few seconds it takes to re-read them.