@pipeworx/recap

Connect: https://gateway.pipeworx.io/recap/mcp · Install: one-click buttons

Tools: 1

Direct links to the complaints, motions, orders and exhibits filed in federal cases. No API key, no PACER fee.

Auth

None.

How this is possible without a key

RECAP documents are not in CourtListener’s bulk export. They are mirrored to the Internet Archive under an identifier that can be derived:

gov.uscourts.<court_id>.<pacer_case_id>

Our federal docket mirror holds court_id for 100% of dockets and pacer_case_id for 84.8%, so a case’s filings have a computable address. No agreement with anyone, no per-page charge.

What you get, and what you don’t

You get: a link to each PDF, its docket-entry number and attachment number, its size, and the docket sheet where one exists.

You don’t get text. Measured across 400 dockets: 141 archive items carry PDFs and none carry extracted text. Reading a filing means opening the document. Making these searchable would be an OCR project; this is not one.

Coverage is partial, and uneven

RECAP holds what PACER users have paid for and contributed, so coverage follows where lawyers use it. Measured over 400 dockets across 16 courts:

Overall: 35.8%.

The consequence matters more than the number: “no documents” means none have been contributed to RECAP — not that nothing was filed. Roughly two cases in three will come back empty, and every response says so. Treating an empty result as a fact about the court record would be wrong most of the time.

Tool

recap_filings — give it a docket_id from any docket search, or a court plus docket_number.

recap_filings({docket_id: 73433096})
  → V.O.S. Selections, Inc. v. Trump (cafc), 18 documents

Filenames encode the structure: ….12.0.pdf is docket entry 12, ….12.1.pdf its first attachment. That ordering is the only structure the archive provides — there are no document titles — so it is returned rather than hidden.

Related

• federal_civil_search, federal_criminal_search, federal_appeal_search, bankruptcy_search — find the docket first
• court-listener — opinions and full case text, a different corpus entirely

Data sources

• https://archive.org/ — RECAP archive items
• Our federal docket mirror (CourtListener bulk data, Public Domain Mark)

RECAP exists because Free Law Project built it and PACER users contributed to it: https://free.law/donate/

Tools

• recap_filings — List the DOCUMENTS FILED in a US federal court case — complaints, motions, orders, exhibits — with a direct link to each PDF. Reads the free RECAP archive on the Internet Archive; no API key and no PA