Vakil documentation

Plain-language overviews of a legal topic. None can be stored without a jurisdiction level, a jurisdiction, an as-of date and a citation; review-due is computed from the as-of date on every read.

Term definitions are statements too, so each carries its own jurisdiction and as-of date. No dictionary content ships — the workspace supplies every entry.

Checks a document's text against a reference list of clause types your workspace built and reports present, unclear, or absent for each — recomputed on every read, never stored, so a coverage result can never quietly age past the clause library it came from.

A pasted document is split into sections deterministically and matched against your own workspace's grounded glossary and clause notes — the same term-matching the clause flagger already uses, with no credential needed. A plain-English paraphrase per section additionally uses an LLM key when configured, and passes back through the same regulated-advice gate as everything else before it is shown.

Needs: An LLM key, for the paraphrase only — section splitting and glossary matching work without one. There is also no OCR on this deployment: a scanned or photographed document is not readable, only pasted text.

Five fixed templates — an unpaid invoice, before signing, a notice received, a new hire, a premises lease — each about the papers you already have, never a shipped statutory requirements list. Every instance carries a copied caveat.

Workspace-supplied templates render by placeholder substitution with a non-dismissible advocate-review notice, a named reviewer and a last-reviewed date. Generating with keep=true persists a version-snapshotted draft you can re-read, edit field by field, and export. Export is plain text, not PDF — there is no PDF-rendering library on this deployment.

Needs: No template content ships; your workspace supplies every template.

Fact capture, a fixed reviewed question set, the answer log and a downloadable plain-text briefing sheet all work with no credential — and so does adaptive follow-up questioning. Each follow-up names the opening question whose answer makes it worth asking, so the sequence derives its order from what you recorded rather than generating a guess. That also makes it reproducible: the same answers ask the same questions. An LLM key is an optional extra that adds questions once the reviewed set runs out; it is no longer the only adaptive path.

The same substitution-only template machinery as document templates, filtered to employment paperwork — no generative drafting, no model credential. Labour-law notes are grounded statements scoped to the template's own jurisdiction: central notes always show, state notes only for that template's own state, so a state rule can never read as a national default.

The Nice Classification (45 classes) ships as reference data, and a search query records exactly what you want checked. No search actually runs against the registry — a query links out to the official government search instead of returning a result.

Needs: A client for the IP India Trade Marks Registry (tmrsearch.ipindia.gov.in) — not built. Until it is, this stays a query log with a link out, not a live lookup.

The register, key dates and renewal watch work against your own database and pasted text today.

Needs: File bodies, encryption at rest, virus scanning and time-limited share links need object storage and an antivirus service. Until then, storage_ref stays null on every document and only pasted body_text is readable.

A chronological record of a matter's own events, with no field for merits, strength, or outcome anywhere in the schema. A fixed-template summary and a downloadable plain-text briefing sheet both work with no credential.

Needs: Object storage, for attachments only — the upload-grant call fails cleanly with a 503 naming it until then. The timeline, summary and briefing sheet all work without it.

Due and overdue state, and roll-forward on completion, computed locally. A business profile now matches plausible deadline templates from your workspace's own grounded statements by structure and state — central templates always apply, state ones only for the profile's own state.

Needs: No statutory calendar ships; reminder delivery by email, SMS or WhatsApp needs a notification channel, which is not connected on this deployment.

Resolves only against grounded forum-mapping statements your workspace holds. With none current, it reports unresolved and raises an escalation rather than guessing. Each lookup gets a receipt id, and re-checking it resolves fresh against the current statement library rather than replaying a cached answer, so a mapping added later is visible immediately. Nothing computed is stored.

Practice-area categories and Bar Council enrolment-verification guidance only — complete at that boundary rather than extended into a directory.

An answer with no sources, a superseded source, a stale one, or one from the wrong jurisdiction is refused; the question is marked withheld and an escalation is recorded. A stale-sources check now flags already-published answers whose sources have since gone stale or been superseded, computed on every read.

Needs: Automatic verification of a citation's text against India Code is not built — no client exists for indiacode.nic.in.

Invoice facts, a self-declared MSME/Udyam eligibility check, and grounded MSMED Act information (the interest rate, the 45-day payment term) all work with no credential — this is fact capture and reference information, and nothing more. There is no route that drafts the reminder letter itself, and none is planned: producing a demand for payment is correspondence addressed to a counterparty, which this product's design rules out categorically, not for want of a credential or a future release.

The respondent, what happened, the amount, and the relief sought are captured and stay editable. There is no route that drafts the complaint itself, and none is planned: which forum to file in depends on claim value and is periodically revised, and the complaint text is correspondence addressed to a forum, which this product's design rules out categorically. It links to the National Consumer Helpline and e-Daakhil instead of producing a document.

A received notice is logged from pasted text, and a high-risk one — a Section 138 cheque-bounce notice, a show-cause notice, a summons, an arbitration notice — is escalated automatically, the same pattern the question log already uses. There is no route that drafts a reply, and none is planned: this is the highest-risk capability in the set, and everything past logging and escalating is correspondence addressed to a counterparty, an authority or a court, which this product's design rules out categorically.

Create a grounded statement as_of is missing, so services/vakil.py require_currency() raises before the row is written. The same statement with an as_of date returns 201.

{
  "kind": "general_rule",
  "topic": "security_deposit",
  "title": "Security deposit under a commercial lease",
  "body": "[workspace-supplied summary, in the reviewer's own words]",
  "jurisdiction_level": "state",
  "jurisdiction_name": "Karnataka",
  "source_kind": "bare_act",
  "source_citation": "[the actual Act and section]"
}

422
{
  "message": "A legal statement has to say when it was true.",
  "ask": "Give the date this was checked against the source. A legal statement of law with no date cannot be told apart from one the last amendment already overtook.",
  "notice": "This is general legal information, not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for an enrolled advocate."
}

List, superseded excluded by default

Replace with a new dated version

Definitions (kind=definition statements)

Topic explainers (kind=general_rule statements)

Log a question; triaged for advice-shaped phrasing first

List, filterable by state

One question with resolved sources and escalations

Answer with cited statement ids; refused if ungrounded The withhold and the escalation are committed before the 422 is raised, so the record that Vakil declined survives even though the HTTP call itself failed.

{
  "answer_text": "[a proposed answer]",
  "statement_ids": []
}

422
{
  "message": "An answer needs at least one source a reader can check.",
  "ask": "Cite the statement this rests on, or leave the question unanswered. Vakil withholds rather than guessing at a section number.",
  "escalation_id": "...",
  "question_state": "withheld_unsourced"
}

Manual escalation

List with a reason tally

Close out an escalation

Open a matter

List, filterable by status

Log an event in your own words

Chronological record, no merits field

Register a document (pasted text today)

List, filterable by kind and matter

One document plus its obligations

Documents and obligations due within a window

Track a recurring or one-off deadline

List with overdue ids called out

Mark done; rolls a recurring one forward

Add a reference clause type, backed by a clause-note statement

List for a document type

Present / unclear / absent per clause type "assessment": null is set explicitly on every response, not omitted, so a client reading the payload sees that no assessment is offered rather than wondering where it went.

200
{
  "results": [
    { "clause_key": "termination", "presence": "present",
      "evidence": "…either party may terminate this agreement on 30 days' written notice…" },
    { "clause_key": "liability_cap", "presence": "unclear",
      "evidence": null }
  ],
  "assessment": null,
  "disclaimer": "This says only whether each standard clause type appears in the text, matched on wording. It is not a review. It does not say whether any term is fair, favourable, enforceable or safe to sign, and 'all present' does not mean the contract is good — those are judgements for an enrolled advocate."
}

Add a workspace template with a named reviewer

List with review-due ids

Fill placeholders; never persisted, never ready to sign

The five fixed checklist templates

Instantiate one for a matter The caveat is copied onto the instance at creation, so a printed copy keeps the wording that was current when it was made, even if the template's caveat is edited later.

{
  "template_key": "notice_received_pack",
  "matter_id": "..."
}

201
{
  "id": "...", "template_key": "notice_received_pack",
  "title": "You have received a notice",
  "caveat": "This is a list of your own papers to gather. It is not a statement of what any authority requires. ... confirm with the office concerned or an enrolled advocate before relying on it.",
  "items": [
    { "item_key": "the_notice", "label": "The notice itself, all pages", "state": "pending" },
    { "item_key": "envelope", "label": "The envelope and postal receipt", "state": "pending" }
  ],
  "gathered": 0, "total": 6
}

One checklist with its items

Mark an item gathered

Fixed categories, never a named advocate

Category to practice area

Resolve against grounded forum-mapping statements