A research instrument, shaped like the work.

Across Municipalities. Research how other municipalities regulate, and compare them, using their own official documents. Reads only official municipal documents that have been verified into the shared library. It does not search the open web. Open it.

My Municipality. Ask your own municipality's record: precedent, decision history and what was committed to. Reads only the internal record of the municipality it is configured for. It cannot read the shared cross-municipal library, and that library cannot read it. Open it.

• Comparison

  Like-for-like across municipalities, each stated in that municipality's own terms. Where they count differently — a total on the lot versus units additional to the principal dwelling — the table says so instead of converting the numbers into a false match.

• Precedent

  What was done before on a comparable file, what was accepted as sufficient, and the material differences that limit how far it transfers.

• Decision history

  Submission, technical review, staff recommendation, Committee, Council, the implementing by-law and the implementation record are kept apart, in date order, with the point where the outcome changed called out.

• Commitments

  What was required, who required it, and what the later record does or does not establish about it. Nothing is marked satisfied because it was required.

It does not search the open web, summarise a news article as if it were policy, or fill a gap in the record with a plausible sentence. It does not report a condition as cleared because it was imposed. When a run cannot be completed to that standard, no answer is shown.

Municipal planners, policy staff, engineering and clerks' staff, and the consultants and counsel who work alongside them — anyone who has to be able to say where an answer came from.