# Daylight

> Who paid for the research behind the headline? Now anyone can just look. Daylight is a free public good that re-organizes existing government and journal records so anyone can follow the money from a funder to a study, an expert, or a bill.

Everyone says follow the money; almost nobody can do it. Daylight turns scattered public records into one plain-language view of who funded the research, expert, or position behind a policy, and where that funded idea traveled. Lobbying filings, tax records, campaign contributions, federal grants, and funder metadata are already published; they are just technical, fragmented, and hard to connect. Daylight pulls them together, traces the money from funder to institution to expert to legislation, and links every figure back to its original filing. It re-organizes and visualizes the public record. It does not investigate, allege, or add any secret data.

Pricing is simple because there is none. Daylight is free for everyone, with no account and no paywall. It is funded like the investigative journalism it supports, through grants and voluntary reader donations ($5/mo, $15/mo, or one-time). Donations never change what anyone can see or do. The product is pre-launch and a free early-access list is open.

Daylight serves curious citizens who want to check a "this was industry-funded" claim for themselves, voters researching the money behind an issue or a bill, students and educators learning to read public records, journalists tracing funding and how a funded idea propagates across sources, policy analysts and advocacy nonprofits assessing whose interest backs a position, and researchers or research-integrity offices checking disclosed-vs-discoverable ties.

A look-up runs in four passes. First it resolves the entity, matching a study, funder, think tank, expert, or bill across public records. Then it traces the money path from funder to institution to expert or study to lobbying to legislation to media, with every edge sourced. Next it reconciles what was disclosed against what is discoverable, and shows the gap. Finally you see the picture, a plain-language Capture Score with a full drill-down plus a map of where the funded idea spread.

Every data source is already public. Daylight draws on federal lobbying registrations and activity reports (U.S. Senate LDA), campaign and committee contributions (FEC), nonprofit and foundation finances (IRS Form 990), federal grants and research awards (USAspending, NIH RePORTER, NSF), funder metadata and the citation graph (OpenAlex, Crossref), and SEC filings plus university gift disclosures.

Daylight commits to staying free and open with no feature gates. It re-organizes the public record and does not investigate or accuse. Every figure links to the original public filing, the methodology is published, and the data is downloadable. It does not sell user data, and corrections are public.

For AI agents, Daylight exposes a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server over streamable-HTTP transport with no authentication (the tools are public). The server is mounted at /mcp, so the JSON-RPC endpoint lives one level deeper, at https://daylight.watch/mcp/mcp; point streamable-HTTP clients at that full path. Two tools are available via the standard tools/list call. `get_product_info` returns a structured overview of what Daylight is, who it serves, how it works, the public data sources, the free/donation funding model, and status. `submit_interest` joins the free early-access list on a user's behalf (email, name, company, persona, message); valid persona values are curious_citizen, voter, student_educator, journalist, policy_analyst, advocacy_ngo, researcher, and other.

## Docs

- [Homepage](https://daylight.watch/): the Daylight landing page, with the four-step method and every data source listed
- [Live demo](https://daylight.watch/demo): interactive three-industry trace with the Capture Score, disclosure gaps, and propagation map

## For AI agents

- [MCP endpoint](https://daylight.watch/mcp/mcp): streamable-HTTP JSON-RPC endpoint for get_product_info and submit_interest (the server is mounted at /mcp)
- [MCP discovery](https://daylight.watch/.well-known/mcp.json): machine-readable advertisement of the MCP server and its tools
- [OpenAPI spec](https://daylight.watch/openapi.json): REST description of the site's HTTP endpoints for non-MCP agents
- [security.txt](https://daylight.watch/.well-known/security.txt): security contact for the site

## Optional

- [Contact](mailto:hello@daylight.watch): reach the Daylight team directly
- [Sitemap](https://daylight.watch/sitemap.xml): crawlable URL list for the site