Retrieve a federal docket's entries and RECAP documents via CourtListener's v4 REST API using cursor-based pagination
domain: courtlistener.com · 6 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Steps
Authenticate to CourtListener's v4 REST API and query the docket-entries endpoint filtered by docket ID, e.g. GET /api/rest/v4/docket-entries/?docket=<id>.
Sort or filter results by recap_sequence_number or entry_number to reconstruct the docket's chronological entry order.
Page through large result sets using the opaque next/previous cursor URLs returned in each response - v4's cursor pagination allows crawling arbitrarily deep, unlike v3 which blocked access past page 100.
Never change other query/filter parameters while reusing an existing cursor value; the cursor is only valid for the parameter set that generated it and will error if parameters change mid-crawl.
Issue an HTTP OPTIONS request against an endpoint to discover its available fields, filters, and ordering options at runtime rather than hardcoding assumptions.
Follow each docket entry's linked RECAP document/attachment identifiers to fetch the underlying PDF already archived in RECAP, avoiding re-purchase from PACER when the document is already available.
Known gotchas
Always navigate via the response's next/previous cursor link rather than constructing page-number URLs - direct page jumps are not supported in the v4 cursor scheme.
Changing filter or ordering parameters while keeping an old cursor breaks the request; request a fresh first page whenever parameters change.
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