Regulation structure

The following diagram is based on the one at https://eregs.github.io/introduction/ and customized to show structures common in Medicaid regulations.

This is intended to be a helpful reference for developers working with the relationships between chunks of regulations. See also: https://www.ecfr.gov/developers/documentation/api/v1 + https://github.com/usgpo/bulk-data/blob/main/CFR-XML_User-Guide.md#2-schema-description

Title: e.g. 42
- Chapter or Subtitle: e.g. IV
  - Subchapter: e.g. A, C, D: a set of parts.
    - Part: e.g. 433: a set of regulation subparts and sections.
      - Subpart: e.g. "Subpart A": a set of sections.
        
        Subject group: i.e. "Assignment of Rights to Benefits": uncommon, not used in citations.
        
        Section: Usually, but not always underneath a subpart (see 433.1 Definitions).
        
        Paragraph: 433.1(a) 433.1(a)(2).

(For team members: the following diagram file lives here.)

Structure of regulations drawio

Please note that all pages on this GitHub wiki are draft working documents, not complete or polished.

Our software team puts non-sensitive technical documentation on this wiki to help us maintain a shared understanding of our work, including what we've done and why. As an open source project, this documentation is public in case anything in here is helpful to other teams, including anyone who may be interested in reusing our code for other projects.

For context, see the HHS Open Source Software plan (2016) and CMS Technical Reference Architecture section about Open Source Software, including Business Rule BR-OSS-13: "CMS-Released OSS Code Must Include Documentation Accessible to the Open Source Community".

For CMS staff and contractors: internal documentation on Enterprise Confluence (requires login).