Glossary

Common SEC API, EDGAR, filing, market-data, and agent terms.

Glossary

Use this glossary when you need the exact meaning of a term used across SEC API responses, guides, and examples.

Accession number

A unique SEC filing identifier, such as 0000320193-24-000123. Use accession numbers to fetch a specific filing, download the source document, or cite the exact disclosure behind an answer.

Agent

A software system that can call tools, read results, and decide the next step. SEC API examples preserve request IDs, provenance, freshness, and citations so agents can explain where an answer came from.

CIK

Central Index Key. The SEC assigns a CIK to companies, funds, insiders, and other filers. SEC API accepts CIKs with or without leading zeros where supported.

EDGAR

The SEC’s Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system. EDGAR is the primary source for public company filings, fund reports, ownership disclosures, and many event documents.

Filing

A document submitted to the SEC, such as a 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, DEF 14A, 13F-HR, or Form 4. SEC API returns filing metadata, source URLs, sections, downloads, and structured extracts where available.

Form type

The SEC form family for a filing. Examples include annual reports (10-K), quarterly reports (10-Q), current reports (8-K), proxy statements (DEF 14A), insider trades (3, 4, 5), and institutional holdings (13F-HR).

Freshness

Metadata that describes how current a result is and when the underlying source was observed, processed, or materialized. Use freshness fields when a workflow needs to distinguish current data from delayed or partial data.

Materialization

A persisted derived result, such as a parsed filing section, normalized statement, artifact, or intelligence bundle. Materialization metadata helps you decide whether a response was computed live or served from a stored result.

MCP

Model Context Protocol. SEC API exposes a hosted MCP endpoint so compatible agents can call SEC, ownership, search, and intelligence tools without a custom local wrapper.

Meter class

The billing class assigned to a request, such as light, standard, heavy, artifact, delivery, intelligence, market, or semantic search. Meter classes determine pay-as-you-go usage cost.

Provenance

Source information attached to a result, including filing identifiers, URLs, spans, trace data, or provider metadata. Preserve provenance when showing results to users or handing data to another agent.

Request ID

A unique identifier returned with API responses. Include the request ID when debugging, contacting support, or storing an audit trail for a workflow.

Trace

A linked record of how a result was produced. Traces can connect filings, sections, derived artifacts, and intelligence outputs back to their source data.

Webhook

An HTTPS callback that SEC API sends when a subscribed event occurs. Webhook payloads are signed and include event metadata so your application can verify and process them safely.

XBRL

eXtensible Business Reporting Language. Public companies use XBRL and inline XBRL to tag financial-statement facts. SEC API uses SEC structured data and filing context to provide statement, facts, segmented revenue, and related workflows.