Editorial Policy

Last updated 2026-04-26

permitbystate.com publishes regulatory reference guides at scale using a multi-model AI pipeline. We believe AI-assisted publishing is only defensible when the sourcing, the pipeline, and the correction process are open. This page documents all three.

Sourcing

Every guide is built from primary regulatory data fetched by adapters we maintain. The current source set:

• FAA — federal aviation rules, drone airspace data
• IRS — federal tax codes and credits
• OpenStates — state legislation, bill text, and status
• DSIRE — state and utility energy incentives
• NORML — state cannabis policy data
• PubMed — peer-reviewed health and clinical literature (used for healthcare verticals)
• Census, BLS, FRED — demographic, labor, and macroeconomic context
• Google Civic — jurisdiction and elected-official lookup
• Data.gov — federal open-data datasets

Where statutes are quoted or paraphrased, the source citation appears in the page’s “Sources” section.

Generation pipeline

Each page passes through five stages, each performed by a different model so failures and biases don’t compound:

1. Outline — Gemini Flash structures the page from the source bundle.
2. Draft — Claude Sonnet 4.6 writes the long-form body.
3. Editor — Gemini Flash performs a fact-check pass against the source bundle and flags unsupported claims.
4. Polish — Gemini Flash-Lite tightens readability and removes filler.
5. FAQ — gpt-4o-mini drafts the FAQ block, scoped to the verified body.

Quality gates

Before a page ships, it must clear soft gates (word count, citation count, banned-phrase screening) and hard blocks (required sections present, frontmatter valid). Pages that fail are routed back to the pipeline rather than published partially.

Verification & updates

Pages are re-verified on a quarterly cadence. The verified_at timestamp shown in the trust bar updates with each pass. Material regulatory changes (a new statute, a fee change, a court ruling) trigger an immediate re-run for the affected pages rather than waiting for the cadence.

Author byline

We do not put a fake human name on AI-generated work. The editorial entity is “PermitByState.” The methodology popover on every page discloses the model chain. We chose this over invented bylines because regulatory readers deserve to know what produced what they’re reading.

Corrections

Found a factual error? Email corrections@permitbystate.com with the URL and the issue. We respond within 7 days and log substantive corrections on the corrections page.

Affiliate disclosure

Some outbound product links are affiliate links. Affiliate relationships do not influence the regulatory content. See the affiliate disclosure.

Not legal advice

Reference material only. Consult a licensed attorney or CPA in your jurisdiction before acting on anything you read here.