MN Understood is a public knowledge base about social services in Minnesota. It's written mainly for AI assistants, so they can help people, and social workers helping clients, understand what services exist, who qualifies and how to apply. There's no chatbot and nothing to sign up for: you use your own assistant, and it reads this site.
Who makes it
Ian Bicking built the system behind the site: a process for collecting official sources, writing knowledge from them, checking it and building these pages. AI agents run that process. Corrections and questions go to ianbicking@gmail.com.
How it's made
Official sources (Minnesota Statutes and Rules, federal regulations, agency manuals) are saved as dated copies. Knowledge is written from those copies, one subject at a time, citing the exact passages and their effective dates. Pages are then built from that knowledge, each written to a list of what it has to cover.
AI agents check claims against the cited sources, and a second AI model spot-checks answers. Where sources disagree, that's noted. This is an early test, and mistakes are likely. The full process is described, for AI assistants, in How this site is made.
How it's kept current
When a saved source changes, everything built on it is rechecked and the pages are rebuilt. There's no fixed schedule for re-checking sources yet, and pages don't yet show when they were last checked.
Sources
Every statement on a topic page traces back to cited sources; Sources lists them all. Per-page source listings are planned. Other projects that encode the same rules, such as PolicyEngine, are used only to cross-check, not copied.
Limits
The site explains general rules. It can't tell you whether you'll qualify or be approved; your county or the agency decides. Rules change, so pages may be out of date. The site collects no personal information. It isn't legal advice: if you're facing a denial, a cut in benefits or an overpayment claim, contact the county or agency, and consider getting legal help.
What's covered
The goal is all of Minnesota's social services. So far the site covers one topic in depth, how child support affects SNAP, MFIP, General Assistance, Minnesota Supplemental Aid and Housing Support, with more on the way.
License
The site's text is released under CC0 (public domain). How the underlying research repository will be released hasn't been decided yet.