Track U.S. federal debt and Treasury cash daily

The problem

Two daily Treasury figures are watched closely: the total public debt outstanding (Debt to the Penny), and the Treasury General Account balance, the federal government's operating cash at the Federal Reserve, which matters around debt-limit episodes and for bank reserves. Both are published each business day for the previous business day through the keyless Fiscal Data API.

This guide sets up one monitor for each, keyed by record date, so every new day arrives as a new record and any revision of a day already published shows up as a field-level change.

What the source contains

U.S. total public debt outstanding, daily · Bureau of the Fiscal Service (U.S. Department of the Treasury)

The U.S. Treasury's daily Debt to the Penny figures for the most recent 30 business days: total public debt outstanding, debt held by the public and intragovernmental holdings, in dollars, one record per day.

6 typed fields · 30 records in SourceFinch's latest run on October 12, 2026 · publisher updates: each federal business day, for the previous business day · full source page

What a change means

• A new record_date: the figures for another business day.
• A changed amount on a record_date you already have: a revision of a published day.

Set it up in the console

1. Open the Verified recipe. Open the U.S. total public debt outstanding, daily recipe in the console. It keeps the reviewed URL, fields and record key (record_date), and shows the latest captured sample. Open in the console
2. Create the monitor. Name the monitor, keep the daily schedule or pick another (the console shows the monthly run cost), confirm that you have the right to monitor the source, and choose Create monitor.
3. Run the baseline. The first run is the baseline: every record is new. From the second run on, the monitor reports what was added, changed or removed, field by field, with the evidence behind each value.
4. Choose how you hear about changes. In Alerts, choose immediate change emails or a daily or weekly digest; each monitor can override that on its own page. For your own systems, add a signed webhook in Destinations. Alerts and team
5. Add the Treasury General Account monitor. Open the operating cash balance recipe the same way. Export either monitor as CSV, JSON or XLSX whenever you want the series in a spreadsheet.

The other recipe: U.S. Treasury General Account daily closing balance.

The same through the REST API, CLI or MCP

Every surface creates the same monitor from the same Verified recipe. You confirm you have the right to collect the source (rights: true).

U.S. total public debt outstanding, daily

# the Verified entry (fields, recipe, sample, terms) as JSON
curl https://sourcefinch.com/v1/catalog/treasury-debt-to-the-penny -H "Authorization: Bearer $SOURCEFINCH_API_KEY"

# create the monitor from source.json (below)
curl -X POST https://sourcefinch.com/v1/sources \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SOURCEFINCH_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: $(uuidgen)" \
  -d @source.json

# then run it now (later runs follow the schedule)
curl -X POST https://sourcefinch.com/v1/sources/$SOURCE_ID/runs \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SOURCEFINCH_API_KEY" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: $(uuidgen)"

sourcefinch login
sourcefinch catalog get treasury-debt-to-the-penny --source-json > source.json
sourcefinch sources create --file source.json
sourcefinch runs create $SOURCE_ID --wait
sourcefinch records $SOURCE_ID

claude mcp add --transport http sourcefinch https://sourcefinch.com/mcp

# then ask your agent:
"Use SourceFinch to monitor U.S. total public debt outstanding, daily: get_catalog_source treasury-debt-to-the-penny,
then create_source with its create_source_args (dry run first), then run_source."

{
  "name": "U.S. total public debt outstanding, daily",
  "url": "https://api.fiscaldata.treasury.gov/services/api/fiscal_service/v2/accounting/od/debt_to_penny?sort=-record_date&page%5Bsize%5D=30",
  "recipe": {
    "mode": "http",
    "format": "json",
    "items": "data[*]",
    "fields": {
      "fiscal_year": "record_fiscal_year",
      "record_date": "record_date",
      "fiscal_quarter": "record_fiscal_quarter",
      "total_public_debt": "tot_pub_debt_out_amt",
      "debt_held_by_public": "debt_held_public_amt",
      "intragovernmental_holdings": "intragov_hold_amt"
    },
    "required": [
      "record_date",
      "total_public_debt"
    ],
    "types": {
      "fiscal_year": "integer",
      "record_date": "date",
      "fiscal_quarter": "integer",
      "total_public_debt": "number",
      "debt_held_by_public": "number",
      "intragovernmental_holdings": "number"
    }
  },
  "key_field": "record_date",
  "schedule": "daily",
  "rights": true,
  "catalog": {
    "slug": "treasury-debt-to-the-penny",
    "version_id": "483f1e63-8a5b-48e9-af8b-a9722f93c9bc"
  }
}

# the Verified entry (fields, recipe, sample, terms) as JSON
curl https://sourcefinch.com/v1/catalog/treasury-operating-cash-balance -H "Authorization: Bearer $SOURCEFINCH_API_KEY"

# create the monitor from source.json (below)
curl -X POST https://sourcefinch.com/v1/sources \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SOURCEFINCH_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: $(uuidgen)" \
  -d @source.json

# then run it now (later runs follow the schedule)
curl -X POST https://sourcefinch.com/v1/sources/$SOURCE_ID/runs \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SOURCEFINCH_API_KEY" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: $(uuidgen)"

sourcefinch login
sourcefinch catalog get treasury-operating-cash-balance --source-json > source.json
sourcefinch sources create --file source.json
sourcefinch runs create $SOURCE_ID --wait
sourcefinch records $SOURCE_ID

claude mcp add --transport http sourcefinch https://sourcefinch.com/mcp

# then ask your agent:
"Use SourceFinch to monitor U.S. Treasury General Account daily closing balance: get_catalog_source treasury-operating-cash-balance,
then create_source with its create_source_args (dry run first), then run_source."

{
  "name": "U.S. Treasury General Account daily closing balance",
  "url": "https://api.fiscaldata.treasury.gov/services/api/fiscal_service/v1/accounting/dts/operating_cash_balance?filter=account_type:eq:Treasury%20General%20Account%20(TGA)%20Closing%20Balance&sort=-record_date&page%5Bsize%5D=30",
  "recipe": {
    "mode": "http",
    "format": "json",
    "items": "data[*]",
    "fields": {
      "fiscal_year": "record_fiscal_year",
      "record_date": "record_date",
      "account_type": "account_type",
      "fiscal_quarter": "record_fiscal_quarter",
      "closing_balance_millions": "open_today_bal"
    },
    "required": [
      "record_date",
      "closing_balance_millions"
    ],
    "types": {
      "fiscal_year": "integer",
      "record_date": "date",
      "fiscal_quarter": "integer",
      "closing_balance_millions": "number"
    }
  },
  "key_field": "record_date",
  "schedule": "daily",
  "rights": true,
  "catalog": {
    "slug": "treasury-operating-cash-balance",
    "version_id": "bd8073e0-8650-4658-82b1-06c394101dc6"
  }
}

Alerts and evidence

A new record arrives every business day, so a daily digest keeps email quiet; a webhook in Snapshot mode sends all current records after each successful run if a dashboard needs the full series.

Every run keeps the publisher's exact response with its SHA-256 hash and a signed manifest, and every value points back to where it was read. How that works is in the docs:

• Review changes and receipts
• Alerts: change emails and digests
• Evidence and export: what a run keeps, bundles, CSV/JSON/XLSX
• Checking an evidence bundle offline
• Verifying signed webhooks
• Rights and acceptable use

Limitations

• Each run reads the 30 most recent days. A day leaving that window is not a deletion; the monitor's history keeps it.
• Debt amounts are in dollars to the cent. Very large values are carried as JSON numbers, which hold about 15 significant digits.
• The Treasury General Account balance is in millions of dollars. Since the 2022 redesign of the Daily Treasury Statement, the API carries this line's amount in its opening-balance column; the field's description documents this.
• Opening balance, deposit and withdrawal lines of the Daily Treasury Statement are not read.

Usage rights, terms posture and reliability for each source are on its source page. They are our documented understanding of each publisher's stated terms, not legal advice.

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