Quickstart

1. Generate an API key

Go to casebyte.ai/dashboard and sign in with your Casebyte account. API access is currently in private beta — if you don’t see the API keys section, email us for access.

Open the API keys section

From your dashboard, open Settings and scroll to API keys.

Create a key

Click New API key, give it a descriptive name (e.g. local-dev or production-worker), and click Create.

You’ll see the full key value once. Copy it now and store it in a secret manager. Casebyte only ever stores a hash of the key, so we cannot show it to you again. If you lose it, revoke it and issue a new one.

API keys look like this:

cb_live_8f2a3b4c5d6e7f1a9b8c7d6e5f4a3b2c

The cb_live_ prefix is part of the key — include it in your Authorization header.

2. Make your first request

Search for the phrase “wednesbury unreasonable” across all of HK case law, returning at most 5 results:

curl -G https://api.casebyte.ai/v1/cases/search \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CASEBYTE_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode 'q="wednesbury unreasonable"' \
  --data-urlencode 'limit=5'

const res = await fetch(
  "https://api.casebyte.ai/v1/cases/search?" +
    new URLSearchParams({
      q: '"wednesbury unreasonable"',
      limit: "5",
    }),
  {
    headers: {
      Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.CASEBYTE_API_KEY}`,
    },
  },
);
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data.results);

import os
import requests

res = requests.get(
    "https://api.casebyte.ai/v1/cases/search",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['CASEBYTE_API_KEY']}"},
    params={"q": '"wednesbury unreasonable"', "limit": 5},
)
res.raise_for_status()
print(res.json()["results"])

req, _ := http.NewRequest("GET", "https://api.casebyte.ai/v1/cases/search", nil)
req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer "+os.Getenv("CASEBYTE_API_KEY"))

q := req.URL.Query()
q.Set("q", `"wednesbury unreasonable"`)
q.Set("limit", "5")
req.URL.RawQuery = q.Encode()

res, _ := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)
defer res.Body.Close()
body, _ := io.ReadAll(res.Body)
fmt.Println(string(body))

You should get a response like:

{
  "total": 47,
  "limit": 5,
  "offset": 0,
  "results": [
    {
      "case_id": "HKCFA_2021_12",
      "case_name": "Kwok Cheuk Kin v Director of Lands",
      "court": "HKCFA",
      "neutral_citation": "[2021] HKCFA 12",
      "action_number": ["FACV 4/2020"],
      "publish_date": "2021-04-21",
      "score": 14.82,
      "highlights": {
        "doc_text": [
          "...the test of <em>Wednesbury</em> <em>unreasonable</em>ness applied..."
        ],
        "case_name": []
      }
    }
  ]
}

3. Retrieve the full judgment

Take a case_id from the search results and fetch the judgment text:

curl https://api.casebyte.ai/v1/cases/HKCFA_2021_12 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CASEBYTE_API_KEY"

The response includes metadata plus the full plain-text judgment:

{
  "case_id": "HKCFA_2021_12",
  "case_name": "Kwok Cheuk Kin v Director of Lands",
  "court": "HKCFA",
  "neutral_citation": "[2021] HKCFA 12",
  "action_numbers": ["FACV 4/2020"],
  "publish_date": "2021-04-21",
  "case_url": "https://www.hklii.hk/...",
  "doc_text": "JUDGMENT...",
  "matched_by": "case_id"
}

4. See who cites it

Find later judgments that cite this case:

curl https://api.casebyte.ai/v1/cases/HKCFA_2021_12/cited-by \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CASEBYTE_API_KEY"

{
  "case_id": "HKCFA_2021_12",
  "total": 8,
  "citing_cases": [
    {
      "case_id": "HKCA_2023_487",
      "case_name": "...",
      "neutral_citation": "[2023] HKCA 487",
      "publish_date": "2023-09-15",
      "citation_text": "[2021] HKCFA 12"
    }
  ]
}

What’s next

Search syntax

Boolean operators, phrases, fuzzy matching, and field scoping.

Identifiers

Three ways to look up a case — and which one to use.

Errors

Every error code the API can return, and what to do about it.

Rate limits

Understand the limits and how to back off cleanly.

Read recent Daily summaries

For news and video integrations, use Daily summaries to list the last seven Hong Kong calendar days, filter by publication day or area of law, and retrieve a summary by case ID or neutral citation.

Getting started

Concepts

1. Generate an API key

2. Make your first request

3. Retrieve the full judgment

4. See who cites it

What’s next

Search syntax

Identifiers

Errors

Rate limits

Read recent Daily summaries

​1. Generate an API key

​2. Make your first request

​3. Retrieve the full judgment

​4. See who cites it

​What’s next

Search syntax

Identifiers

Errors

Rate limits

​Read recent Daily summaries

1. Generate an API key

2. Make your first request

3. Retrieve the full judgment

4. See who cites it

What’s next

Read recent Daily summaries