> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.secapi.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Coverage and historical depth

> Assess the coverage of a specific SEC API result, including its source, period, and availability limits

Coverage is specific to the issuer, filing, period, and representation you request. A filing can be available while a section, normalized fact, or derived result is not. Before using a result in research, a model, or an operational workflow, write down the exact evidence you need and test that request rather than treating a successful lookup as a coverage claim.

```bash theme={null}
curl -sS -H "x-api-key: $SECAPI_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.secapi.ai/v1/filings?ticker=AAPL&form=10-K&limit=25"
```

## Historical boundary

Filing and section workflows document a nine-year searchable floor. Completeness checks apply to required filing forms for the two most recently completed years. The current year is available as filings arrive; it is not covered by the completed-year completeness check.

Older filings can be returned. Their usefulness still depends on the issuer, form, document format, and the route's materialization path. A successful query for one issuer or year is not a platform-wide coverage guarantee.

## Confirm the representation you need

| Requirement               | Start with                        | Confirm in the response                                      |
| ------------------------- | --------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Source filing             | filing or latest-filing route     | issuer, form, filing date, accession number, filing URL      |
| Filing text or section    | render or section route           | the chosen filing and section contain the requested material |
| Normalized value          | facts or statements route         | period, units, provenance, and disclosed fields              |
| Event or ownership result | relevant event or ownership route | date range, form family, and returned limitation fields      |

A source document does not mean every disclosed value is normalized or comparable across issuers. Likewise, a result for one year does not establish availability for another, and a fast response does not establish that the data is current enough for a particular use.

## Test the slice you will use

1. Name the issuer, form family, reporting period, and representation required by the workflow.
2. Run that bounded request for a small, representative set of issuers and periods, including a known difficult case where appropriate.
3. For each result, record the request, retrieval time, accession number or other source identifier, returned period, units, and availability or limitation fields.
4. Inspect missing, partial, and degraded results individually. Do not count an empty response as a zero value or a conclusive negative finding.
5. Keep the capture with the downstream output so another reviewer can repeat the lookup against the same source selection.

This is a suitability check, not a platform census. It demonstrates what the named requests returned at the time of capture; it does not prove coverage of untested issuers, forms, periods, or representations.

## Preserve the availability boundary

Store the filing accession number and URL with a filing-backed result. Preserve returned periods, provenance, capabilities, warnings, and degradation fields. When the requested evidence is unavailable, surface that state or obtain approval for a documented alternative; do not quietly replace it with a different issuer, filing, period, or data type.

Market-calendar results have their own scope. Read `coverage`, `confidence`, and `statusNote` together. `configured_holidays` identifies configured holiday coverage; `weekend_only` and `tentative` do not establish a complete local-holiday calendar.

SEC API does not claim equal data density across EDGAR, a universal real-time lag, or normalization for every exhibit and filing family. See [EDGAR coverage and statistics](/edgar-statistics), [Freshness and source evidence](/freshness-and-trust), and [SEC filing types and exhibits](/filing-types-and-exhibits).