ANNAPOLIS – Governor Wes Moore announced Friday the rollout of a redesigned, automated online platform for the Code of Maryland Regulations, known as COMAR, replacing a decades-old system plagued by manual updates and search limitations.
The new site, accessible at regs.maryland.gov, went live immediately and will fully replace the existing platform at dsd.maryland.gov in early 2026.
COMAR compiles all administrative regulations adopted by state agencies and is consulted more than 100,000 times monthly by courts, law firms, businesses, libraries, and residents researching rules that range from occupational licensing and environmental standards to unemployment insurance and child care requirements.
The modernization project, led by the Maryland Digital Service in partnership with the Secretary of State’s Division of State Documents and the nonprofit Open Law Library, introduces several key upgrades.
Search functions have been overhauled with improved algorithms that reduce formatting errors and inconsistent results. Users now benefit from intuitive navigation, direct links to related statutes, and cleaner document printing.
Behind the scenes, the previous process required staff to repeatedly download, edit, and re-upload regulation changes. The new system automates drafting, codification, and publishing, cutting manual labor and allowing faster updates.
The entire COMAR dataset is now published in machine-readable XML format, an open-source standard that enables integration with external applications and future artificial intelligence tools for legal research.
Security features include The Archive Framework, a cryptographic tool developed in 2019 by New York University professor Justin Cappos. The system creates tamper-evident records and preserves historical versions of every regulation, preventing undetected alterations by hackers or insiders.
“Modernizing state government means sweating the details of transparency, access, and archiving,” Moore said in a prepared statement. “The new system does what technology does best—it will save Marylanders valuable time in combing through state websites, update how we publish state documents, and bring Maryland into the 21st century.”
Secretary of State Susan C. Lee described the platform as part of the Moore-Miller Administration’s broader effort to streamline workflows and reduce costs while expanding public access.
Katie Savage, secretary of the Maryland Department of Information Technology, called the COMAR overhaul the first in a series of major digital upgrades planned by the Maryland Digital Service, created by executive order in 2023 to accelerate government technology projects.
Open Law Library CEO David Greisen praised the collaboration, noting that automated publishing frees staff to focus on public service rather than outdated administrative tasks.
For Southern Maryland residents and businesses, the changes mean faster access to regulations enforced by agencies such as the Maryland Department of the Environment, the Department of Labor, and the Motor Vehicle Administration—rules that directly affect local contractors, watermen, farmers, and small employers in St. Mary’s, Calvert, and Charles counties.
The previous COMAR site, launched more than two decades ago, relied on static HTML pages that were difficult to maintain and offered limited mobile compatibility. The new platform is fully responsive and designed for use on phones and tablets.
State officials said the project was completed at no additional licensing cost to taxpayers through the use of open-source tools and in-house development resources.