Source Discovery
Purpose
Discover the minimum viable set of official sources needed to research a site. Stop at source identification and source classification. Do not extract parcel facts, zoning standards, or planning conclusions here.
Keep this skill narrow:
- Find official URLs
- Rank source authority
- Record access issues and fallback routes
- Hand off to
parcel-zoning-research
Use when
- A new site-feasibility project has started
- The project has an address, parcel ID, or municipality but no trusted source inventory
- An upstream agent needs a
source_bundle.json
Do not use when
- Zoning, Official Plan, or overlay facts have already been extracted
- The task is to interpret policy, assess feasibility, or write the final report
- The task is Toronto-only zoning extraction from known datasets; route that to
parcel-zoning-research
Inputs
{
"project_id": "uuid",
"jurisdiction": "Toronto",
"address_input": "123 Main St, Toronto ON",
"parcel_id": null,
"project_type": "multiplex",
"research_scope": "core | expanded"
}
Required fields:
jurisdiction- One of
address_input or parcel_id
Optional fields:
project_typeresearch_scope
Outputs
Produce exactly one artifact: source_bundle.json.
{
"project_id": "uuid",
"jurisdiction": "Toronto",
"address_input": "123 Main St, Toronto ON",
"discovery_timestamp": "ISO datetime",
"sources": {
"parcel_lookup": [],
"zoning": [],
"official_plan": [],
"overlays": [],
"applications_and_precedents": [],
"supplementary": []
},
"not_found": [],
"access_notes":
Each source entry must include:
{
"name": "Toronto Open Data Portal",
"url": "https://open.toronto.ca/",
"source_type": "open_data | bylaw_text | official_plan | application_portal | conservation_authority | registry | map",
"authority": "official | quasi_official | secondary",
"coverage": "parcel | zoning | official_plan | heritage | flood | applications | permits",
"access_method": "direct_download | html_page | interactive_map | search_portal",
"status": "confirmed | likely | blocked",
"notes": "Short operational note"
}
Reference Router
Load only the reference file relevant to the current municipality:
| Municipality | Load This Reference |
|---|
| Toronto | references/toronto-open-data.md |
| Any Ontario municipality | references/ontario-data-portals.md |
| Toronto + need portal patterns | Both files — ontario-data-portals.md for trust levels and source hierarchy, toronto-open-data.md for API endpoints |
Workflow
1. Scope the jurisdiction
- Confirm municipality and province from the input
- Default Ontario projects to the Ontario/Toronto research stack unless the user specifies another province
- If the municipality is outside Ontario, stop and return a scoped failure rather than improvising
2. Find the core official sources
Always try to identify these categories:
- Parcel or address lookup
- Zoning map or zoning dataset
- Zoning by-law text
- Official Plan page or land-use map
- Heritage register
- Conservation-authority or hazard mapping
- Planning application history
For Toronto, prefer the official public stack in this order:
- City of Toronto Open Data portal
- City of Toronto Official Plan pages
- Zoning By-law 569-2013 pages and interactive zoning resources
- Application Information Centre
- TRCA regulated-area mapping
3. Classify each source
For every discovered source, record:
- Authority level
- Access method
- Expected downstream use
- Whether extraction is likely direct or requires portal fallback
Prefer official machine-readable datasets over PDFs and interactive maps. Prefer official HTML pages over third-party summaries.
4. Record missing or blocked categories
- Put every missing category in
not_found
- Put every interactive-only or brittle source in
access_notes
- Recommend the exact downstream fallback, for example:
interactive map, manual lookup, or browser automation
5. Hand off cleanly
Return only source metadata. Do not:
- Geocode
- Extract parcel geometry
- Pull zoning standards
- Infer policy compatibility
- Write feasibility conclusions
The handoff contract is:
source-discovery produces source_bundle.jsonparcel-zoning-research consumes source_bundle.json and produces normalized_data.json
Quality Bar
- Include at least one official source for zoning, Official Plan, and overlays when available
- Prefer sources with stable URLs over search-result URLs
- Mark uncertain availability as
likely, not confirmed
- Never fabricate a dataset slug, API URL, or portal endpoint
Stop Conditions
Stop and return a scoped warning when:
- The municipality cannot be identified confidently
- Only secondary sources are discoverable
- The official source exists but blocks access and no fallback path is visible
Reference Files
| File | Description | Key Topics |
|---|
references/ontario-data-portals.md | Ontario municipal portal patterns, trust levels, source hierarchy | Toronto Open Data DQS, OnLand, MPAC, TRCA, Heritage Register, AIC, building permits |
references/toronto-open-data.md | Toronto CKAN API endpoints, spatial query patterns, geocoding | Package IDs, GeoJSON endpoints, point-in-polygon, data freshness checks |
Read only the reference file relevant to the current municipality.
External References
