> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://vaquill.ai/docs/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Search US statutes, constitutions, court rules, and executive actions > Search across federal and state law and get back the most relevant sections with citations and links to official source documents. **Corpora (`corpusType`):** - `USC`: United States Code (54,855 sections) - `CFR`: Code of Federal Regulations (219,403 sections) - `STATE`: State statutory codes, 49 states plus DC and Puerto Rico. Call `/statutes/states` for live coverage and `/statutes/codes` for a state's codes; see the [Coverage page](https://www.vaquill.ai/docs/coverage) for the full breakdown. - `CONSTITUTION`: U.S. Constitution (Articles I-VII + 27 Amendments) - `FEDERAL_RULES`: FRCP, FRCrP, FRE, FRAP, FRBP (297 sections) - `STATE_CONSTITUTION`: state constitutions (41 jurisdictions) - `STATE_RULES`: state court rules (AZ, CA, IL, MD, MN, NV, PA) - `EXECUTIVE_ACTION`: Federal Register Presidential Documents (Executive Orders, Proclamations, Memos; 2015 to today, refreshed daily) - `REGULATION`: state administrative regulations (pair with `state`; call `/statutes/states` for coverage) - `FEDERAL_REGISTER`: Federal Register agency rules, final and proposed - `AGENCY_GUIDANCE`: agency guidance (SSA rulings, IRS notices, revenue rulings and procedures) **Authentication**: API key via `Authorization: Bearer vq_key_...` **Cost**: 4 credits per call (see `/api-credits/pricing`). Failed calls are not charged. **Pagination**: use `limit` (page size, max 50) with `offset` (max 40); check `hasMore` in the response to page forward. Returns relevant sections with full metadata: citation, title hierarchy, and direct links to official source documents where available. ## Examples ```python # Search SEC regulations requests.post(url, headers=h, json={ "query": "insider trading material nonpublic information", "corpusType": "CFR", "titleNumber": 17, "limit": 5, }) # Search California state statutes requests.post(url, headers=h, json={ "query": "shareholder derivative action standing", "corpusType": "STATE", "state": "ca", }) # Search Executive Orders on a topic requests.post(url, headers=h, json={ "query": "AI safety federal agency adoption", "corpusType": "EXECUTIVE_ACTION", }) # Search Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requests.post(url, headers=h, json={ "query": "personal jurisdiction long-arm statute", "corpusType": "FEDERAL_RULES", }) # Cross-corpus search (no corpusType filter) requests.post(url, headers=h, json={ "query": "due process equal protection fourteenth amendment", }) ``` ## Parameters - `query` (required): natural-language or keyword query, 2 to 500 characters. - `corpusType` (optional): one of the 8 corpus tokens above. Omit to search every corpus at once. - `state` (optional, 2-letter lowercase, e.g. `ca`): restrict to one state. Applies only to `STATE`, `STATE_CONSTITUTION`, and `STATE_RULES`; ignored for federal corpora. - `titleNumber` (optional, integer): restrict to a USC/CFR title (e.g. 17 for SEC, 42 for civil rights). Applies only to `USC`/`CFR`. State titles are alphabetic codes (use `/statutes/codes` to find them), so this is ignored for state corpora. - `limit` (optional, default 10, max 50): number of results to return. ## Tips - Provide `corpusType` whenever you know it. Unscoped queries can surface keyword matches from unrelated corpora; a corpus filter sharply improves precision. - Take a returned `actId` and call `/statutes/section/{actId}` for metadata or `/statutes/section/{actId}/body` for the full text. - `relevanceScore` ranks results within one response; do not compare it across different queries. ## OpenAPI ````yaml https://api.vaquill.ai/external/openapi.json post /api/v1/statutes/search openapi: 3.1.0 info: title: Vaquill Developer API description: >- Public API for legal statutes and legislation. **Authentication**: Pass your API key via the `Authorization: Bearer vq_key_...` header. **Credits**: Each call costs API credits. See `GET /api/v1/api-credits/pricing` for the full pricing matrix. ## Jurisdictions | Jurisdiction | Coverage | `countryCode` | |---|---|---| | **United States** | USC, CFR, nearly all 50 state statutory codes (plus DC and Puerto Rico), state constitutions, and court rules. | `US` | See the full [Coverage page](https://www.vaquill.ai/docs/coverage) for the jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction breakdown, or call `/statutes/states` for live counts. ## Endpoints - **US Statutes**: Search and retrieve USC, CFR, state statutes, constitutions, court rules, executive orders, and regulations with full text - **Pricing**: Credit costs per endpoint (no auth required) ## Rate limits Limits are enforced per API key and scale with your plan. A `429` response includes a `Retry-After` header. | Plan | Per minute | Per hour | Per day | |---|---|---|---| | API ($199/mo, 1x) | 30 | 500 | 2,000 | | API Business ($1,000/mo, 5x) | 150 | 2,500 | 10,000 | For full documentation, visit the [API Reference](https://www.vaquill.ai/docs/api-reference/). version: 1.0.0 contact: name: Vaquill API Support url: https://www.vaquill.ai email: support@vaquill.ai license: name: Proprietary url: https://www.vaquill.ai/terms termsOfService: https://www.vaquill.ai/terms servers: - url: https://api.vaquill.ai description: Production security: - ApiKeyAuth: [] tags: - name: US Statutes description: >- Search and retrieve US statutes. Covers the United States Code (USC), Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), all 50 state statutes, constitutions, court rules, executive orders, Federal Register agency rules, agency guidance, and state regulations. Scope a search with the `corpusType` filter. - **Search**: Search across all USC, CFR, state, and regulatory sections - **Section**: Get metadata, citation, hierarchy, and source links for a specific section - **Body**: Get the full text of a section - name: Pricing description: >- Credit pricing and conversion rates. No authentication required. 1 credit = $0.01 USD. externalDocs: description: Full API Reference url: https://www.vaquill.ai/docs/api-reference/ paths: /api/v1/statutes/search: post: tags: - US Statutes summary: Search US statutes, constitutions, court rules, and executive actions description: >- Search across federal and state law and get back the most relevant sections with citations and links to official source documents. **Corpora (`corpusType`):** - `USC`: United States Code (54,855 sections) - `CFR`: Code of Federal Regulations (219,403 sections) - `STATE`: State statutory codes, 49 states plus DC and Puerto Rico. Call `/statutes/states` for live coverage and `/statutes/codes` for a state's codes; see the [Coverage page](https://www.vaquill.ai/docs/coverage) for the full breakdown. - `CONSTITUTION`: U.S. Constitution (Articles I-VII + 27 Amendments) - `FEDERAL_RULES`: FRCP, FRCrP, FRE, FRAP, FRBP (297 sections) - `STATE_CONSTITUTION`: state constitutions (41 jurisdictions) - `STATE_RULES`: state court rules (AZ, CA, IL, MD, MN, NV, PA) - `EXECUTIVE_ACTION`: Federal Register Presidential Documents (Executive Orders, Proclamations, Memos; 2015 to today, refreshed daily) - `REGULATION`: state administrative regulations (pair with `state`; call `/statutes/states` for coverage) - `FEDERAL_REGISTER`: Federal Register agency rules, final and proposed - `AGENCY_GUIDANCE`: agency guidance (SSA rulings, IRS notices, revenue rulings and procedures) **Authentication**: API key via `Authorization: Bearer vq_key_...` **Cost**: 4 credits per call (see `/api-credits/pricing`). Failed calls are not charged. **Pagination**: use `limit` (page size, max 50) with `offset` (max 40); check `hasMore` in the response to page forward. Returns relevant sections with full metadata: citation, title hierarchy, and direct links to official source documents where available. ## Examples ```python # Search SEC regulations requests.post(url, headers=h, json={ "query": "insider trading material nonpublic information", "corpusType": "CFR", "titleNumber": 17, "limit": 5, }) # Search California state statutes requests.post(url, headers=h, json={ "query": "shareholder derivative action standing", "corpusType": "STATE", "state": "ca", }) # Search Executive Orders on a topic requests.post(url, headers=h, json={ "query": "AI safety federal agency adoption", "corpusType": "EXECUTIVE_ACTION", }) # Search Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requests.post(url, headers=h, json={ "query": "personal jurisdiction long-arm statute", "corpusType": "FEDERAL_RULES", }) # Cross-corpus search (no corpusType filter) requests.post(url, headers=h, json={ "query": "due process equal protection fourteenth amendment", }) ``` ## Parameters - `query` (required): natural-language or keyword query, 2 to 500 characters. - `corpusType` (optional): one of the 8 corpus tokens above. Omit to search every corpus at once. - `state` (optional, 2-letter lowercase, e.g. `ca`): restrict to one state. Applies only to `STATE`, `STATE_CONSTITUTION`, and `STATE_RULES`; ignored for federal corpora. - `titleNumber` (optional, integer): restrict to a USC/CFR title (e.g. 17 for SEC, 42 for civil rights). Applies only to `USC`/`CFR`. State titles are alphabetic codes (use `/statutes/codes` to find them), so this is ignored for state corpora. - `limit` (optional, default 10, max 50): number of results to return. ## Tips - Provide `corpusType` whenever you know it. Unscoped queries can surface keyword matches from unrelated corpora; a corpus filter sharply improves precision. - Take a returned `actId` and call `/statutes/section/{actId}` for metadata or `/statutes/section/{actId}/body` for the full text. - `relevanceScore` ranks results within one response; do not compare it across different queries. operationId: search_statutes_api_v1_statutes_search_post requestBody: content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/StatuteSearchRequest' required: true responses: '200': description: Ranked sections for the query. content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/StatuteSearchResponse' example: results: - actId: CFR_T17_P240_S240_10b5_1 citation: 17 C.F.R. § 240.10b5-1 (2026) citationShort: 17 C.F.R. § 240.10b5-1 title: >- Trading on the basis of material nonpublic information in insider trading cases corpusType: CFR state: federal year: 2026 relevanceScore: 0.91 excerpt: >- The manipulative and deceptive devices prohibited by section 10(b)... titleNumber: 17 sectionNumber: 240.10b5-1 displayPath: Title 17 CFR > Chapter II > Part 240 > Section 240.10b5-1 htmlUrl: https://statutes-us.vaquill.ai/ecfr/... externalUrl: https://www.ecfr.gov/... total: 1 query: insider trading material nonpublic information processingTimeMs: 412.3 creditsConsumed: 4 '402': description: Insufficient API credits. content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/ApiDetailError' example: detail: Insufficient credits '422': description: >- Invalid request body (e.g. query too short, limit over 50, bad corpusType). content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/ApiDetailError' example: detail: Validation error components: schemas: StatuteSearchRequest: properties: query: type: string maxLength: 500 minLength: 2 title: Query description: Search query in natural language. examples: - insider trading penalties corpusType: anyOf: - type: string enum: - USC - CFR - STATE - CONSTITUTION - FEDERAL_RULES - STATE_CONSTITUTION - STATE_RULES - EXECUTIVE_ACTION - REGULATION - FEDERAL_REGISTER - AGENCY_GUIDANCE - type: 'null' title: Corpustype description: >- Restrict to one corpus. One of: `USC` (United States Code), `CFR` (Code of Federal Regulations), `STATE` (state statutory codes; call `/statutes/states` for the list of ingested jurisdictions), `CONSTITUTION` (U.S. Constitution), `FEDERAL_RULES` (FRCP / FRCrP / FRE / FRAP / FRBP), `STATE_CONSTITUTION` (state constitutions, currently CA/VA/NC/WI), `STATE_RULES` (state court rules, currently CA), `EXECUTIVE_ACTION` (Federal Register Presidential Documents), `REGULATION` (state administrative regulations; pair with `state`), `FEDERAL_REGISTER` (Federal Register agency rules, final and proposed), `AGENCY_GUIDANCE` (agency guidance: SSA rulings, IRS notices, revenue rulings and procedures). Omit to search across all corpora. examples: - CFR state: anyOf: - type: string maxLength: 2 minLength: 2 - type: 'null' title: State description: >- 2-letter state code (lowercase, e.g. `ca`, `tx`, `ny`) used to filter state corpora. Ignored when `corpusType` is `USC`, `CFR`, `CONSTITUTION`, `FEDERAL_RULES`, or `EXECUTIVE_ACTION`. examples: - ca titleNumber: anyOf: - type: integer - type: 'null' title: Titlenumber description: >- Filter by USC/CFR title number (e.g., 17 for SEC, 42 for civil rights). Only meaningful for `USC`/`CFR`; ignored for state corpora whose titles are alphabetic (e.g. Texas `pe` = Penal Code). examples: - 17 limit: type: integer maximum: 50 minimum: 1 title: Limit description: Number of results to return per page. default: 10 offset: type: integer maximum: 40 minimum: 0 title: Offset description: >- Number of results to skip for pagination. Combined with `limit`, the deepest reachable result is `offset + limit`. Deep paging is bounded by the reranking window, so `offset` is capped at 40. Use `hasMore` in the response to decide whether to request the next page. default: 0 type: object required: - query title: StatuteSearchRequest StatuteSearchResponse: properties: results: items: $ref: '#/components/schemas/StatuteResult' type: array title: Results total: type: integer title: Total description: >- Number of results returned in this response (the size of `results`). This is the current page count, not the corpus-wide match total. Use `hasMore` to detect further pages. default: 0 offset: type: integer title: Offset description: The offset applied to this page. default: 0 hasMore: type: boolean title: Hasmore description: Whether more results exist beyond this page. default: false query: type: string title: Query description: The search query used. default: '' processingTimeMs: type: number title: Processingtimems default: 0 creditsConsumed: type: number title: Creditsconsumed default: 0 type: object title: StatuteSearchResponse ApiDetailError: properties: detail: type: string title: Detail examples: - Insufficient API credits. type: object required: - detail title: ApiDetailError description: |- Error envelope the API actually returns. All errors (401/402/403/404/422/429/5xx) come back as a single `detail` string (FastAPI default), e.g. `{"detail": "Insufficient API credits."}`. Documenting the real shape so client code can rely on it. StatuteResult: properties: actId: type: string title: Actid description: >- Unique section identifier (e.g., 'USC_T42_C21_S1983', 'CFR_T17_P240_S240_10b5_1'). citation: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Citation description: >- Full citation (e.g., '42 U.S.C. § 1983 (2024)', '17 C.F.R. § 240.10b5-1 (2026)'). citationShort: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Citationshort description: Short citation (e.g., '42 U.S.C. § 1983', '17 C.F.R. § 240.10b5-1'). title: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Title description: Section title. corpusType: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Corpustype description: >- One of `USC`, `CFR`, `STATE`, `CONSTITUTION`, `FEDERAL_RULES`, `STATE_CONSTITUTION`, `STATE_RULES`, or `EXECUTIVE_ACTION`. state: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: State description: >- 2-letter lowercase state code (e.g. `ca`, `tx`) when the row belongs to a state corpus. `federal` for federal rows. year: anyOf: - type: integer - type: 'null' title: Year description: Year of the statute version. relevanceScore: type: number title: Relevancescore description: >- Relevance score, normalized to roughly 0-1. Higher means a better match for ranking within one response. It is a relative ranking signal, not a calibrated confidence or probability, so do not compare scores across different queries or treat a fixed value as a quality threshold. default: 0 excerpt: type: string title: Excerpt description: Text excerpt (up to 500 characters). default: '' titleNumber: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Titlenumber description: USC/CFR/state title number (e.g. '26', '13A'). titleName: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Titlename description: Title name (e.g., 'The Public Health and Welfare'). chapter: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Chapter description: Chapter number or identifier. chapterName: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Chaptername description: Chapter name. sectionNumber: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Sectionnumber description: Section number (e.g., '1983', '240.10b5-1'). displayPath: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Displaypath description: Full hierarchical path (Title > Chapter > Section). breadcrumb: anyOf: - items: additionalProperties: type: string type: object type: array - type: 'null' title: Breadcrumb description: Structured breadcrumb trail for navigation. htmlUrl: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Htmlurl description: HTML version of the statute section. pdfUrl: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Pdfurl description: PDF version of the statute section. xmlUrl: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Xmlurl description: XML version of the statute section. textUrl: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Texturl description: >- Plain-text version. Populated for state corpora (MS, NJ, NY, NV, etc.). docxUrl: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Docxurl description: Microsoft Word (DOCX) version, when available. stateHtmlUrl: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Statehtmlurl description: >- Official HTML hosted by the state legislature (publisher's URL). Populated for state corpora only. govInfoHtmlUrl: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Govinfohtmlurl description: Official govinfo.gov HTML version. govInfoPdfUrl: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Govinfopdfurl description: Official govinfo.gov PDF version. externalUrl: anyOf: - type: string - type: 'null' title: Externalurl description: URL on the official source website (eCFR or uscode.house.gov). type: object required: - actId title: StatuteResult description: A single statute section from search results. securitySchemes: ApiKeyAuth: type: http scheme: bearer bearerFormat: vq_key_* description: >- API key issued from the Vaquill developer dashboard. Pass as `Authorization: Bearer vq_key_...` ````