GovDash

A citizen map of the U.S. federal hierarchy — how it’s organized, what’s nested under what, to help you understand the job before us.

How to use the map

1. Pick a layout — Icicle, Tree, Circles, or Sankey. Each visit opens on Icicle; nothing is remembered (not chart, depth, zoom, ZIP, theme, Heat, or which page). Direction arrows flip Icicle/Sankey between top-down and sideways.
2. Depth slider (Icicle, bar under the map) — each step is another generation under where you are. At the Constitution, 1 is the six doors and 11 is the rest of the tree. After you enter a department, 1 is that place’s children.
3. Open a place — tap or click a cell to select it and open the detail pane. Enter (in the pane) or drill in the map to go deeper; breadcrumbs and the Constitution rail go back. On Tree, tap the current top row to go up one level (the ▾ control expands in place). When a place has dollars, a FY slider appears in the pane for years 2018–2026. Committed is what they signed for; paid is what left the Treasury — both move when USAspending has them; child offices often have committed only. Structure, mission, and employee counts do not change. A blank year means no honest match, not a hidden number. The open year is incomplete until Q4 lands.
4. Find — search by name. The half-width control next to Find is Heat (what’s happening — see below). Z looks up House/Senate by ZIP. C is the next 30 days: the same Heat snapshot laid out on a calendar, plus OPM federal holidays (offices closed — not a map pulse). The event count under Next 30 days is the whole bake; the number above the list is that day’s events, and it changes when you tap a date. $ is federal money: debt, interest, receipts vs outlays, top agencies by committed dollars, and awards where you live. I is immigration / who comes in: monthly NIV and IV visa issuances (one month each — not FYTD), plus USRAP, SIV, and CBP southwest encounters — separate cards. Tap a card for detail. L/D switches light and dark for this session. A opens About.
5. Six doors — Legislative · Executive · Judicial · Agencies · Chartered · International (in that order). On Sankey the last two are labeled Chart and Int so they fit; tap for the full names.

Heat — what’s happening

The control next to Find is a simple on/off switch. Off it asks Where’s the action? — tap to pulse places with upcoming floor sessions, Federal Register filings, and similar official activity. On it shows how many places are pulsing and when we last built this snapshot (the bake count as of that day, or 0 as of that day if it is quiet) — pan and zoom to find them; tap again to hide. Open a pulsing place (or its parents) and the detail pane repeats that as-of day, then lists events with a date that names the action — e.g. when the chamber convenes, when a document publishes in the Federal Register, when comments close, or when it was filed for public inspection. C is the same snapshot in time — next 30 days. Event count under the title is the bake. The number above the list is that day’s events — tap a date and it changes. Tap Map on an event to jump to that box with Heat on — the place itself, not its door.

• Senate floor — Senate.gov floor schedule (next convene / recent sessions, 30-day window).
• House session — Clerk of the House next meeting.
• Public inspection — Federal Register filings about to appear in the daily issue, matched to agencies on the map (PDF when available).
• Comment deadlines — Federal Register proposed rules whose comments close in the next 30 days, matched like public inspection. Notices and unmatched rules stay off. The title usually opens the regulations.gov comment form (PDF behind it when the Register has one).
• Sunshine Act meetings — FR meeting notices, dated on the meeting day (not the print day), matched to the agency. Unmatched stay off.
• Senate hearings — Senate.gov committee schedule XML, on the Senate box (committees are not separate map places).
• House hearings — Congress.gov committee meetings (hearings, markups, meetings) for IDs posted on docs.house.gov’s calendar, on the House box. Same pattern as Senate.
• Supreme Court — oral argument days from supremecourt.gov calendars, on the Court box.
• Presidential documents — recent FR presidential items (orders, proclamations, and the like).
• Federal holidays — OPM legal public holidays on C only. They do not pulse the map.

Heat is a snapshot built into the map files — not a live feed while you browse. The on-chip date is that build day. Empty Heat means no matched event in this snapshot, not a hidden list. C uses that same bake plus holidays. Spending and Heat are separate: USAspending is dollars; Heat is schedules and Register activity.

Where the data comes from

Structure is built from official sources and refreshed offline into this app — not guessed.

• GSA Federal Hierarchy Crosswalk — skeleton of orgs and parent links (main map identity).
• OPM Federal Workforce Data (EHRI Status) — civilian employee counts when we can match a node. Snapshot Jun 2026. Civilian only — not military end strength, USPS, or contractors. Legislative / most Judicial orgs often have no OPM row.
• U.S. Government Manual — mission and leadership when available. Live Cabinet / selected agency names may overlay Manual text when refreshed from official .gov pages. The pane names that source (White House Cabinet, FDA, Manual) — not the day we last fetched.
• SAM.gov — status overlays where matched.
• Senate.gov, Clerk of the House, docs.house.gov, Congress.gov, Federal Register, Supreme Court — Heat events (floor, hearings, public inspection, proposed-rule comments, Sunshine meetings, presidential documents, argument days). See Heat above.
• OPM federal holidays — legal public holidays on the C page only (offices closed). Not a map pulse.
• Treasury Fiscal Data — public debt, interest expense, and Monthly Treasury Statement receipts/outlays on the $ page (live).
• USAspending.gov — committed (obligated) amounts on matched Cabinet / independent agencies, plus child offices when the name matches (CBP, FEMA, IRS, Army, …). Unmatched boxes stay blank. Open a matched place and use the detail-pane FY slider for years 2018–2026; paid (outlay) appears when USAspending has it. The $ page lists top agencies by committed dollars and ZIP place-of-performance awards.
• State Department Visa Office — monthly on I: NIV (nonimmigrant) and IV (immigrant) consular issuances for the latest published month. Preliminary. Not an FY year-to-date — State says monthly tables must not be summed; annual totals are in the Report of the Visa Office.
• State Department Refugee Processing Center (RPC) — monthly on I: USRAP admissions/arrivals and SIV arrivals (separate cards). Tap a state for nationality.
• CBP encounters — monthly on I → Border. Home card leads with Southwest. Inside Border, pick Southwest / Northern / Other / Nationwide for that region’s total, by-group, and month list (same CBP nationwide CSV). Other is CBP’s non–Southwest / non–northern bucket (mostly OFO at airports, seaports, and preclearance).

If employees are blank, that usually means OPM doesn’t publish a count for that org in this file — not that we hid one. Spending blanks mean no honest toptier or subtier name match — not a hidden number.

What’s on the main map

Merged product tree · counts load from the same tree as the map.

Fan-out (children per node)

Enrichment coverage

By door

Map order: Legislative · Executive · Judicial · Agencies · Chartered · International. Headcount and committed dollars are each door’s roll-up (or blank).

Cabinet-style departments

Employees from OPM. Cabinet dollars are USAspending toptier. Army / Navy / USAF are sub-agency rows under DOD (not a second toptier). USMC has no separate subtier row — blank is honest.

Other doors on the main map

Glossary

• Node — any org in the hierarchy.
• Leaf — node with no children.
• Department — kind=department (18 Cabinet-style orgs under Executive).
• Beneath — how many nodes sit under that department in this map (not just direct children).
• Workforce shown — civilian employees under the title (direct OPM match or sum of children).
• Committed (obligated) — what this place signed for in the fiscal period shown. Blank means no honest match.
• Paid (outlay) — what actually left the Treasury. Shown in the detail pane when USAspending has it (Cabinet / independents). Child offices often have committed only.
• Debt — what is still owed from borrowing over time (Debt to the Penny).
• Deficit — this year’s gap: outlays minus receipts. Adds to the debt.
• Depth — generations under your current focus on the Icicle slider.
• Chart / Int — Sankey short labels for Chartered and International.
• Heat — official “what’s happening” events on the map (pulse) and in the detail pane. Toggle with the half-width control next to Find. C is the same snapshot as a 30-day calendar. One gold dot means a busy day — types are named in the list, not color-coded.
• I / who comes in — immigration page: NIV · IV · USRAP · SIV · Border; monthly; each card its own count. NIV/IV are one-month issuances, not FYTD. Border leads with Southwest; tap a region inside for Northern / Other / Nationwide detail.
• Public inspection — Federal Register documents filed for the next daily issue, before they are “published.”
• Comment deadline — last day to comment on a proposed rule. The title usually opens regulations.gov.
• Sunshine meeting — agency meeting noticed under the Sunshine Act.
• Floor / session — when the Senate or House is next expected to convene (or recently sat), from chamber schedules.

Counts from the merged product + Beyond tree — same files as the map, not a live OPM or USAspending query.

Heat snapshot as of this bake — same day as the map chip and C, not a live query.