> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.focusalpha.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Structured 8-K Events
> What an SEC 8-K filing said, as structured fields: officer changes, debt obligations, mergers, bankruptcies and eleven more event families, extracted within minutes of filing.
Structured 8-K Events turns what an SEC 8-K filing said into fields rather than text. Each observation is one concrete fact: an officer appointment with the person, role, effective date and predecessor; a borrowing with principal, rate, maturity and lender; a listing-deficiency notice with the rule, deadline and planned remedy. Rows are extracted within minutes of the filing reaching EDGAR.
**Plan:** Fund · **Credits:** 1 per call; the families vocabulary is free
## What You Can Use Structured 8-K Events For
Get deal, debt and issuance terms as fields instead of parsing filing prose. Screen across companies — every CEO departure this week, every bankruptcy this month — which no per-company endpoint can do. Pull the detail behind a headline: the [news event feed](/news/news-events) broadcasts one line per 8-K event and its rows carry the same `event_id`, so a feed row and its terms join on the accession number.
For the filing's own prose, use [8-K Exhibits](/events/8k-exhibits). For Item 2.02 earnings numbers, use [Reported Earnings Figures](/events/earnings-results) — results are deliberately not in this dataset.
## The Fourteen 8-K Event Families
`officer_director_change`, `debt_obligation`, `unregistered_equity_sale`, `asset_transaction_completed`, `merger_announcement`, `auditor_change`, `listing_deficiency`, `charter_amendment`, `exit_or_disposal_plan`, `material_impairment`, `earnings_restatement`, `bankruptcy`, `obligation_acceleration`, `cybersecurity_incident`.
Set `list_families` to true — it is free — to get the families, their fields, and the observed values of each. Then filter with `family` plus `attr_key` and `attr_value`, for example `family=officer_director_change`, `attr_key=role_group`, `attr_value=ceo`. A guessed value returns an empty page rather than an error.
## Structured 8-K Event Latency
Measured on 2026-08-13: the median is **12 minutes** from SEC acceptance to extraction, and 94% of filings are extracted within 30 minutes.
That is recent enough to act on but not instant. A filing accepted in the last few minutes may not have its rows yet, and an empty result for one is that gap rather than an absence of events.
## Two 8-K Dates That Are Not Interchangeable
`announced_at` is the **SEC acceptance instant** — when the market learned. Windows and ordering on this endpoint run on `announced_at`, and `announced_gte` and `announced_lte` filter it.
`occurred_on` is the **event's own date**. It is earlier than `announced_at` on 59% of rows, by a median of 3 days, 46 days at the 99th percentile, and years in the tail — an 8-K/A amending an old restructuring plan, for instance.
Use `occurred_on` only to date the event itself, never to order or window a feed.
## How to Read Attribute Values
`attrs` values are strings **exactly as the filing printed them** — `$700 million`, `SOFR plus 1.75%`. They are never converted and never summed. Do not do arithmetic on them without parsing them deliberately.
## How to Read the Quote and Verification Fields
`quote` is the filing sentence the row came from. `quote_check` grades it: `verbatim`, `stitched` (assembled from two or three real passages), `short` (found in the filing word for word but too short to carry the row's facts — a three-word name, a table total), or `unverified`. **Only `unverified` is a warning.**
`numbers_unverified` lists any number the filing text does not contain — almost always a value the extraction derived, such as a total it summed or a scale it applied from a table header. `derived_fields` names the fields holding them. Treat those fields as computed, not read.
`gate` of `item` means the company filed under that item code, which is the statutory case. Any other value is a content probe that found the event described under a different code — lower certainty, kept distinguishable on purpose. Set `verified_only` for the strictest cut.
## Counting 8-K Events Correctly
Filter or de-duplicate on `is_amendment`. 2.5% of rows come from an 8-K/A, and the amending filing usually carries the **whole event again**, not just the correction — 52 measured events hold rows from both the original and its amendment.
Do not de-duplicate by person or amount instead. An amendment routinely renames the same person ("John Fraser" becomes "John (Jack) Fraser") and re-scopes roles, so the rows do not match field by field.
A filing can yield several rows — two officers, three note tranches — ordered by `seq`. Never add a row whose `attrs.is_total` is `yes` to its siblings.
But do not assume the siblings sum to it either. Measured over 75 groups, 69 reconcile and 6 do not, because the same section can also carry a separate offering, a cumulative-to-date series total, only the insider subset of a wider placement, or unenumerated tranches such as "additional tranches of \$250,000 each". A gap is a question to check in the filing, not a missing row.
## Structured 8-K Events Sources
Rows are extracted from the 8-K filings themselves on SEC EDGAR. Every row keeps the filing sentence it came from, and the verification fields above say exactly how far each value can be trusted.
## Query Structured 8-K Events
Use the 8-K events endpoint. Omitting `company` searches the whole market, which is this dataset's distinguishing mode.
A `company_id`, ticker, CIK or ISIN. **Omit to screen across all companies.**
Return the family, field and value vocabulary instead of events. Free — call it first.
Event family, for example `officer_director_change`.
8-K item code, for example `5.02`. The same events under an alternative key.
One filing, for example `0001437749-26-024904`. This is the join key from a news-feed row.
Attribute field to filter on, for example `role_group`. Requires `attr_value`.
`item` for statutory disclosure only, `probe` for content-probe rows only. Both by default.
Only rows whose quote is verbatim and whose numbers all matched the filing.
Earliest acceptance instant, `YYYY-MM-DD` or `2026-08-12T21:30:00Z`. `announced_lte` sets the ceiling.
Rows per page, between 1 and 1000. Page through with `cursor`.
## Related Datasets
See also [8-K Exhibits](/events/8k-exhibits) for the filing's own prose, [Reported Earnings Figures](/events/earnings-results) for Item 2.02 numbers, [Management Guidance](/events/guidance) for forward-looking statements, [Company News Events](/news/news-events) for the same events as a broadcast feed, and [Company Screening](/companies/screening) to combine an event family with fundamental filters.
```bash cURL theme={null}
curl "https://api.focusalpha.ai/v1/8k-events?family=officer_director_change&attr_key=role_group&attr_value=ceo&announced_gte=2026-08-01" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $FOCUSALPHA_API_KEY"
```
```json Response theme={null}
{
"data": [
{
"detail_id": "0000202058-26-000066:5.02:2",
"event_id": "0000202058-26-000066:5.02",
"accession": "0000202058-26-000066",
"company_id": "cmp_005080",
"cik": "202058",
"ticker": "LHX",
"company_name": "L3HARRIS TECHNOLOGIES, INC. /DE/",
"item_code": "5.02",
"family": "officer_director_change",
"seq": 2,
"attrs": {
"role": "Chairman and Chief Executive Officer",
"person": "Christopher Kubasik",
"reason": "other",
"direction": "out",
"role_group": "ceo",
"counterpart": "Sam Mehta",
"is_board_seat": "yes",
"effective_date": "immediately",
"stays_on_board": "no"
},
"quote": "On August 17, 2026, the Company announced that the Company and Christopher Kubasik, its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (the “Executive”), mutually agreed to end the Executive’s employment with the Company effective immediately…",
"quote_check": "verbatim",
"numbers_unverified": [],
"derived_fields": [],
"fully_verified": true,
"gate": "item",
"form": "8-K",
"is_amendment": false,
"announced_at": "2026-08-17T11:30:40Z",
"occurred_on": "2026-08-16",
"filing_date": "2026-08-17",
"source_ref": "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/202058/000020205826000066/0000202058-26-000066-index.htm"
}
],
"next_cursor": null,
"coverage": {
"available_from": "2026-01-02",
"available_to": null,
"update_frequency": "minutes",
"history_status": "starts_2026_01_02"
}
}
```