Search Research Sources

Search case law and legislation across several public sources in one call.

POST /api/v1/research/search

cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.wordsmith.ai/api/v1/research/search" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-ws-api1-your_api_key_here" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "query": "implied term of good faith in long-term commercial contracts",
    "jurisdictions": ["gb"],
    "date_from": "2013-01-01",
    "limit": 10
  }'

Response

{
  "items": [
    {
      "source": "uk_case_law",
      "document_id": "ewhc/qb/2013/111",
      "title": "Yam Seng Pte Ltd v International Trade Corporation Ltd",
      "citation": "[2013] EWHC 111 (QB)",
      "court_or_issuer": "High Court (Queen's Bench Division)",
      "jurisdiction": "gb",
      "date": "2013-02-01",
      "snippet": null,
      "url": "https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/qb/2013/111"
    },
    {
      "source": "moonlit",
      "document_id": "GB-UKSC-2015-72",
      "title": "Marks and Spencer plc v BNP Paribas Securities Services Trust Company (Jersey) Ltd",
      "citation": null,
      "court_or_issuer": "Supreme Court",
      "jurisdiction": "gb",
      "date": "2015",
      "snippet": "…a term will only be implied if it satisfies the test of business necessity…",
      "url": "https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2013-0189.html"
    }
  ],
  "sources": [
    { "source": "uk_case_law", "status": "ok", "count": 1 },
    { "source": "uk_legislation", "status": "ok", "count": 0 },
    { "source": "moonlit", "status": "ok", "count": 1 }
  ]
}

Preview. This endpoint is available to organisations in the Wordsmith MCP pilot. Other organisations receive 403 mcp_not_enabled. See the preview overview.

Searches case law and legislation across several sources at once and returns the matches in one list. Read a full judgment or statute with Get Research Document. For a researched answer or memo, ask an agent with Create Question.

The call is synchronous. The sources run in parallel and each has an 8-second limit, so the call returns within about 10 seconds. A source that is slow or down does not fail the request. The sources list in the response reports each source’s status and how many results it gave.

Results interleave the sources: each source’s best match, then each one’s second, and so on. Each source ranks its own matches. limit caps the whole list, not each source.

You search the sources your organisation’s Wordsmith chat can use. A source that is off for your organisation, or not set up, is skipped. If you name it in sources, it is listed with status: "unavailable". Sources that cover none of the requested jurisdictions are not searched and do not appear in sources.

Sources

source	Covers	Jurisdictions	Searches
moonlit	Legislation, case law, policy and commentary in more than 25 jurisdictions, strongest in continental Europe and other civil-law systems.	gb, eu, at, be, hr, cz, dk, ee, fi, fr, de, ie, it, lu, nl, no, pl, pt, sk, si, es, se, ch, br, ae, sa	Full text
courtlistener	US federal and state case law.	us	Full text
uk_case_law	Judgments from the courts and tribunals of England and Wales and the UK (The National Archives).	gb	Full text
uk_legislation	UK primary and secondary legislation (legislation.gov.uk).	gb	Titles
nz_legislation	New Zealand Acts, bills and legislative instruments.	nz	Full text
eur_lex	EU regulations, directives and decisions, and CJEU case law.	eu	English titles
federal_register	US federal rules, proposed rules and notices.	us	Full text
regulations_gov	US federal rulemaking documents.	us	Full text
sec_edgar	US SEC filings. Search only: a filing cannot be read with Get Research Document.	us	Full text

date_from and date_to go to the source where it can filter by date. For uk_case_law, regulations_gov and eur_lex the results are filtered after the search, so fewer may come back. uk_legislation filters by year. nz_legislation results carry no date and are not filtered.

Authentication

Send an API key, or an OAuth access token with the research:read scope, as a bearer token in the Authorization header. A token without the scope gets 403 with "error": "insufficient_scope".

Body parameters

query · string · required

What to search for, in plain language or as a citation, such as implied term of good faith in commercial contracts or [2015] UKSC 72. 1 to 1,000 characters.

sources · string[]

The sources to search. Defaults to every source you can use. See Sources.

jurisdictions · string[]

Lower-case ISO 3166-1 country codes, plus eu, such as ["gb", "eu"]. Only sources that cover one of them are searched, and moonlit searches only these. Defaults to every jurisdiction the chosen sources cover.

date_from · string

Only results dated on or after this ISO 8601 date, such as "2015-01-01".

date_to · string

Only results dated on or before this ISO 8601 date. Must not be before date_from.

limit · integer · default: "20"

The most results to return in all, from 1 to 50.

Response

The response is not paged. To see more, narrow the query, the sources or the date range.

items · object[]

The matches.

Show properties

source · string

The source id.

document_id · string

The document’s id at the source. Pass it with source to Get Research Document.

title · string

The case name or the instrument’s title.

citation · string | null

The neutral or reporter citation, CELEX number, or filing number.

court_or_issuer · string | null

The court, agency or company.

jurisdiction · string | null

The jurisdiction code, when the source gives one.

date · string | null

ISO 8601: a full date where the source gives one, else the year.

snippet · string | null

A summary or matching passage, when the source returns one. uk_case_law results have none.

url · string | null

The document’s public page at the source.

sources · object[]

One entry for each source searched, and for each named source you cannot use.

Show properties

source · string

The source id.

status · string

ok, partial, timeout, error or unavailable. partial means part of the source’s search failed, so its results may be missing some matches; for EUR-Lex, one of legislation and case law did not answer. Only ok and partial sources gave results.

count · integer

How many of its results are in items.

cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.wordsmith.ai/api/v1/research/search" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-ws-api1-your_api_key_here" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "query": "implied term of good faith in long-term commercial contracts",
    "jurisdictions": ["gb"],
    "date_from": "2013-01-01",
    "limit": 10
  }'

Response

{
  "items": [
    {
      "source": "uk_case_law",
      "document_id": "ewhc/qb/2013/111",
      "title": "Yam Seng Pte Ltd v International Trade Corporation Ltd",
      "citation": "[2013] EWHC 111 (QB)",
      "court_or_issuer": "High Court (Queen's Bench Division)",
      "jurisdiction": "gb",
      "date": "2013-02-01",
      "snippet": null,
      "url": "https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/qb/2013/111"
    },
    {
      "source": "moonlit",
      "document_id": "GB-UKSC-2015-72",
      "title": "Marks and Spencer plc v BNP Paribas Securities Services Trust Company (Jersey) Ltd",
      "citation": null,
      "court_or_issuer": "Supreme Court",
      "jurisdiction": "gb",
      "date": "2015",
      "snippet": "…a term will only be implied if it satisfies the test of business necessity…",
      "url": "https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2013-0189.html"
    }
  ],
  "sources": [
    { "source": "uk_case_law", "status": "ok", "count": 1 },
    { "source": "uk_legislation", "status": "ok", "count": 0 },
    { "source": "moonlit", "status": "ok", "count": 1 }
  ]
}

Errors

See Errors for the error format.

HTTP Status	Error Code	When
400	invalid_request_body	query is missing or empty, a source or jurisdiction code is not recognised, a date is not ISO 8601, date_to is before date_from, or limit is outside 1–50.
401	unauthorized	The API key or token is missing or invalid.
403	insufficient_scope	The OAuth token does not have research:read.
403	mcp_not_enabled	Your organisation is not in the preview.