Overview - Casebyte API

The Casebyte API provides case-law search, retrieval, citation links and recent Daily summaries over JSON, with one authentication scheme and a consistent error format.

Base URL

https://api.casebyte.ai

All resource endpoints are prefixed with /v1/. The unauthenticated /health endpoint can be used for monitoring.

Authentication

All /v1/* endpoints require an API key in the Authorization header:

Authorization: Bearer cb_live_8f2a3b4c5d6e7f1a9b8c7d6e5f4a3b2c

Keys are issued from the API keys section of your casebyte.ai dashboard. See the Quickstart for the full walkthrough.

API keys grant the bearer the ability to read the entire HK case-law corpus and consume your rate-limit budget. Treat them like passwords:

Store them in a secret manager, not in source control
Use a separate key per environment (dev, staging, prod)
Revoke and rotate any key you suspect has leaked

Auth errors

Status	Error code	Cause
`401`	`missing_credentials`	No `Authorization` header, or it doesn’t start with `Bearer` .
`401`	`invalid_credentials`	Token doesn’t start with `cb_live_`, or no matching key in our database.
`401`	`revoked_credentials`	Key existed but has been revoked.

Endpoints

Method	Path	Description
`GET`	`/v1/cases/search`	Boolean / phrase / fuzzy search over HK case law.
`GET`	`/v1/cases/{id}`	Retrieve a single case by ID, neutral citation, or action number.
`GET`	`/v1/cases/{id}/cited-by`	List later judgments that cite this case.
`GET`	`/v1/daily/summaries`	List active Daily summaries, optionally filtered by HKT publication day and area of law.
`GET`	`/v1/daily/summaries/{id}`	Retrieve an active summary by case ID or neutral citation.
`GET`	`/health`	Health check. No auth required.

Request format

All endpoints are GET requests. Parameters go in the query string or the URL path — there is no request body. Path segments must be URL-encoded. Neutral citations like [2023] HKCFA 5 contain reserved characters and must be encoded:

/v1/cases/%5B2023%5D%20HKCFA%205

Most HTTP clients will do this for you (requests, fetch, curl --data-urlencode).

Response format

Successful responses return 200 OK with a JSON body. The shape is documented per-endpoint in the API reference. Every authenticated /v1/* response — 2xx, 4xx, or 429 — includes the following headers so you can pace yourself without hitting the limit:

Header	Meaning
`X-RateLimit-Limit`	Your per-minute quota.
`X-RateLimit-Remaining`	Requests left in the current window.

(/health responses and pre-auth 401s don’t include them — there’s no authenticated key to attribute the count to.)

Error format

Errors are returned with an appropriate HTTP status and a consistent JSON body:

{
  "error": {
    "code": "case_not_found",
    "message": "No case matched that identifier.",
    "details": { "identifier": "HKCFA_9999_0" }
  }
}

Field	Type	Notes
`error.code`	string	Machine-readable error identifier. Stable across versions. Use this in your code.
`error.message`	string	Human-readable summary. May change wording across versions.
`error.details`	object \| array \| null	Optional. Endpoint-specific extra context.

See Error reference for every code the API can emit and what to do about each one.

Versioning

The API is versioned in the URL path (/v1/). Breaking changes will be shipped as a new version (/v2/) with a published deprecation timeline for the old one. Additive changes (new fields, new optional parameters, new endpoints) may be made within a version without notice.

SDKs

There are no official SDKs yet. The API is small enough that any HTTP client will do. The Quickstart has copy-pasteable examples for cURL, Node.js, Python, and Go. If you build a client library you’d like us to link to, drop us a note at support@casebyte.ai.

​Base URL

​Authentication

​Auth errors

​Endpoints

​Request format

​Response format

​Error format

​Versioning

​SDKs