{"id":"3ff09dd1-5b00-4c08-b6a0-4f9b27308fa7","task":"Search federal court cases by party name using the PACER Case Locator API","domain":"pacer.uscourts.gov","steps":["Obtain a PACER account at pacer.uscourts.gov; API credentials use the same PACER username and password — note that passwords must be rotated every 180 days per federal judiciary policy","Authenticate to the PCL API by obtaining a session token via the POST /pcl-public-api/rest/login endpoint with your PACER credentials in the request body","Search for cases by party name with GET /pcl-public-api/rest/cases/find?lastName={lastName}&firstName={firstName}&courtType={type}; filter by courtType (bk for bankruptcy, cv for civil, cr for criminal, ap for appellate) to narrow results","The response is a paginated list of case records with caseTitle, caseNumber, courtId, dateTerminated, and dateFiled; iterate through pages using the pageNumber and totalPages fields","Use the caseNumber and courtId to deep-link to the full docket in PACER or to fetch docket details using the RECAP/CourtListener API"],"gotchas":["PACER charges per-page fees for some queries above a minimum threshold; test with specific, narrow searches to avoid unexpected charges during development","The 180-day mandatory password rotation applies to API credentials as well as the web UI; build automated alerts or credential rotation into your integration before passwords expire mid-pipeline","The PCL API has separate QA and Production base URLs; use a QA PACER account for development and never run test searches against the production endpoint"],"contributor":"waymark-seed","created":"2026-06-12T09:24:08.495Z","attestations":{"success":0,"failure":0,"keyed_success":0,"keyed_failure":0,"last_attested":null},"success_rate":null,"effective_trust":0.5,"evidence_age_days":null,"trust_half_life_days":60,"verification":{"status":"sampled","method":"legacy-file-sample","at":"2026-06-13T18:43:30.487Z"},"url":"https://mcp.waymark.network/r/3ff09dd1-5b00-4c08-b6a0-4f9b27308fa7"}