get_effort
Retrieve an effort by ID: the maintained plain-language answer to "what is happening with this?", the full bill lineage across Congresses, current status, next actor, and story coverage.
This record as markdown: /tools/com-govbase-govbase/get-effort.md
What get_effort does on Govbase
AI agents call get_effort to retrieve information from Govbase without modifying anything. It is typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
effort_id | string | Yes | Effort slug ID (e.g. "safeguard-american-voter-eligibility") |
Parameters from the server's own tool schema.
Why get_effort is rated Low
This is a read-only retrieval operation that accesses stored government policy data (bill information, lineage, status, and news coverage). It has no side effects—it only fetches and returns existing information about legislative efforts. The data returned is public civic information with no destructive, financial, or executable capabilities.
From the tool's definition Tool retrieves and queries data: 'Retrieve an effort by ID', 'the maintained plain-language answer', 'current status', 'story coverage'. No creation, modification, deletion, code execution, or financial operations are described.
Attacks that exploit this kind of access
The rule that runs get_effort safely
PolicyLayer is an MCP gateway: it sits between your AI agents and Govbase, and checks every tool call against a rule you set before the call runs. Nothing changes on the server itself. For get_effort, this is the rule to start with:
get_effort is read-only, so it stays allowed. Everything else on the server is denied unless you say otherwise.
The button opens the PolicyLayer dashboard: create your workspace, connect Govbase, apply this rule, and every get_effort call is checked against it from then on.
Questions about get_effort
Retrieve an effort by ID: the maintained plain-language answer to "what is happening with this?", the full bill lineage across Congresses, current status, next actor, and story coverage. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Govbase MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
get_effort accepts 1 parameter: effort_id. Required: effort_id. The full parameter table on this page comes from the server's own tool schema.
Register the Govbase MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for get_effort: allow, deny, rate-limit, or require approval. Point your MCP client at the PolicyLayer proxy URL and the rule is enforced on every call, before it reaches Govbase. Nothing to install.
get_effort is a Read tool with low risk. Read-only tools are generally safe to allow by default.
Yes. Add a rate_limit block to the get_effort rule in your PolicyLayer policy. For example, setting max: 10 and window: 60 limits the tool to 10 calls per minute. Rate limits are tracked per agent session and reset automatically.
Set action: deny in the PolicyLayer policy for get_effort. The AI agent will receive a policy violation error and cannot call the tool. You can also include a reason field to explain why the tool is blocked.
get_effort is provided by the Govbase MCP server (https://api.govbase.com/mcp). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
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