How the Ecobot MCP server handles regulatory content.

The public MCP endpoint is designed for one job: return verbatim, page-anchored passages from USACE regulatory sources so an assistant can quote and cite them. This page documents the guardrails, the source list, and how to flag a bad answer.

Citation-first, no synthesis

Regulatory tools return verbatim passages plus a page-anchored PDF URL. The server instructions tell the assistant to quote and cite — never paraphrase — and to refuse when no passage clears the similarity threshold.

Customer data is anonymized at ingest

Case studies and help articles pass through a Gemini-based anonymization step before a chunk is written to the index. Customer names, project names, and site identifiers are removed or generalized. Nothing customer-identifying is served through the MCP.

Rate limits

Search tools (search_supplement_content, search_help_articles) are protected by per-IP × per-tool token buckets. Throttled responses include a machine-readable retry_after_seconds and an instruction to the calling model not to fall back to prior knowledge while waiting.

Refresh cadence

The semantic index is rebuilt when the source manifest changes or a new supplement ships. The current corpus and its build date are listed on /admin/mcp-index (Ecobot staff).

What's in the corpus

The regulatory tools search these authoritative sources only. Product tools (get_permitting_context, get_customer_segment, list_resources) surface Ecobot marketing content and are never used to answer "what does the manual say" questions.

1987 USACE Wetlands Delineation Manual
Every current USACE Regional Supplement
2025 National OHWM Manual
USACE ARD Minimum Standards
USACE / ERDC pointers (search_usace_library)
Ecobot Help Center (search_help_articles, anonymized)

Scope note: only USACE Districts and NRCS issue regulatory determinations. Ecobot is aligned to the USACE ARD Minimum Standards; it does not itself produce a jurisdictional determination or an RRS schema.

Report a bad citation

If an assistant returned a wrong page, misattributed a quote, or missed a source that should be in the corpus, tell us. A human reviews every report against the source PDF.