# FDA Investigations Operations Manual (IOM) API

Verbatim full text of the FDA Investigations Operations Manual: the
operational reference FDA investigators use to conduct inspections. The
FDA publishes it as ten separate PDFs with no per-section index and no
search. This service adds one. Content is US federal government work,
public domain. No summarising or interpretation: raw delivery only.

## When to use this

Use this when you need the complete, exact text of a specific IOM section
for inspection-readiness or regulatory research at a pharma, food, device,
or biologics company. Do not use it for general web search.

## Endpoints

- GET /search?q=<keywords>&limit=<1-50>
  Free. Full-text search across all sections. Returns id, chapter_id,
  section_ref, title, and a 200-character snippet for each match. Start
  here to find the id.

- GET /chapter/{id}
  Free. Chapter metadata (e.g. "chapter-05", "Inspections") and its full
  list of section ids, refs, and titles.

- GET /section/{id}
  Free. Metadata and snippet for one section.

- GET /section/{id}/full
  Paid, $0.01 USDC. Returns the full section JSON, including full_text.
  Payment uses the x402 protocol on Base mainnet (eip155:8453). Read the
  payment requirements from the 402 response, pay, and retry.

## Ids

A section id looks like chapter-05--5-1-1. A chapter id looks like
chapter-05. Get exact ids from /search or /chapter/{id}.

## Payment

- Protocol: x402
- Network: Base mainnet (eip155:8453)
- Asset: USDC
- Price: $0.01 per full section
- Facilitator: Coinbase CDP