Show HN: CaseCite – Free RAG caselaw research and document analysis for lawyers

CaseCite launched as a source-available, self-hosted legal research platform that lets law firms run retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) over their own documents using their own API keys, under the Elastic License 2.0. The platform bundles eight tools behind one login — research chat with semantic retrieval plus BM25 rescoring and inline citations, document indexing with imports from Google Drive, OneDrive, Box, Dropbox, iManage, NetDocuments, Filevine and Clio, contract review and redlining, long-document drafting, CourtListener case chat, an authority map, judge analytics and legal tools. CaseCite stores documents, the vector index and chat history only on the user's deployment, but uploading a document sends its text to an embeddings provider (OpenAI by default, or Voyage or Cohere) and asking, analyzing or drafting sends text to an LLM provider (OpenAI, Anthropic or Gemini); running fully on-network requires setting both OPENAI_BASE_URL and EMBEDDING_BASE_URL to self-hosted OpenAI-compatible servers.

CaseCite is a source-available, self-hosted legal research platform. Upload your firm's documents, ask questions, and research cases & judges — on infrastructure you control. Documents, the search index and chat history are stored on your own servers. AI features send your questions and the relevant document text to the AI providers you configure, under your own API keys BYOK ; nothing is sent to the CaseCite maintainers, and there is no telemetry. See What leaves your infrastructure what-leaves-your-infrastructure . Eight tools behind one login, all reading from the same document corpus. | Research /research | Chat over your firm's documents — semantic retrieval with keyword BM25 rescoring of the candidates, and inline citations back to the source. | | Documents /documents | Upload, index, and organize your corpus. Import from Google Drive, OneDrive, Box, Dropbox, iManage, NetDocuments, Filevine, or Clio — OAuth sync, or a file picker where OAuth verification isn't needed. | | Contracts /contracts | Full contract review pipeline: analyze an indexed contract or pasted text, chat with a single contract, compare 2–4 contracts clause-by-clause against a baseline, and export a redline, a draft, or the analysis itself. | | Drafting /drafting | Draft a document grounded in up to four documents you pick from the Knowledge Base, with server-side text extraction and PDF conversion. Set a target length for long documents 30-page agreements : you review a section plan first, then every section is drafted in its own context window against the full references and the whole is reconciled. Revisions to long drafts are scoped to the sections they touch. | | Case view /case/:id | Open a CourtListener opinion and chat with it directly. | | Authority map /case-citations | Map the authorities cited across documents you select. | | Judge intel /judge-intel | Judge analytics from CourtListener. | | Legal tools /tools | Case lookup, citation check a scan of citing opinions for negative-treatment language — not a Shepard's/KeyCite substitute , precedents, dockets, oral arguments, and case-law trends. | Practice profile. Nothing about any practice area is baked into the product. You state what you practice, CaseCite drafts a profile of what matters in that practice, and you edit and own it saved via Settings . It then rides along with every review, redline, and draft as standing context. Every AI-generated answer, analysis and draft carries a notice to verify it against the source documents and current law before relying on it. CaseCite is a research aid, not a substitute for a lawyer's judgment or for a citator. Documents, the vector index, chat history and analyses are stored only on your deployment. Using the AI features transmits content to third parties you choose: - Uploading a document sends its text to the embeddings provider OpenAI by default; Voyage or Cohere if configured . - Asking a question, analysing or drafting sends the question and the relevant document text to the LLM provider OpenAI, Anthropic or Gemini . - Case-law tools send search queries and citations to CourtListener. To keep document text entirely on your network, run both models yourself: set OPENAI BASE URL chat and EMBEDDING BASE URL embeddings to OpenAI-compatible servers you host. Setting only the first still sends document text to OpenAI for embedding. The full list of outbound data flows, and how to restrict them, is in docs/subprocessors.md https://github.com/thomasunise/casecite/blob/main/docs/subprocessors.md . CaseCite is licensed under the Elastic License 2.0 LICENSE https://github.com/thomasunise/casecite/blob/main/LICENSE . In plain terms: - ✅ Free to self-host for your firm's internal use. - ✅ Free to modify for your own deployment. - ❌ Not permitted to offer CaseCite to third parties as a hosted/managed service. - ❌ Not permitted to alter or remove licensing or copyright notices. For paid private installs, support contracts, or hosted-SaaS licensing, contact the maintainer, @thomasunise https://github.com/thomasunise , through GitHub. See SUPPORT.md https://github.com/thomasunise/casecite/blob/main/SUPPORT.md . "Source-available," not OSI "open source." See LICENSE https://github.com/thomasunise/casecite/blob/main/LICENSE for the full terms. - Docker + Docker Compose - openssl to generate secrets - An AI provider API key OpenAI is the simplest start: it covers both chat and embeddings . Optional at the server level — users can each save their own. git clone https://github.com/thomasunise/casecite.git && cd casecite cp .env.example .env 1. Generate the three REQUIRED secrets the .env.example placeholders intentionally refuse to boot . Copy each value into .env: openssl rand -hex 32 - SECRET KEY openssl rand -hex 32 - AUDIT HMAC KEY openssl rand -hex 16 - ENCRYPTION SALT 2. In .env also set OPENAI API KEY or leave it empty and save a key under Settings after signing in , then uncomment and set DOMAIN, POSTGRES PASSWORD and REDIS PASSWORD in the "Bundled production stack" section generation hints are in the file; use DOMAIN=localhost to try it on your machine . CORS ORIGINS and ALLOWED HOSTS default from DOMAIN. Set REGISTRATION BOOTSTRAP TOKEN too openssl rand -hex 16 — you need it to create the first account. 3. Set DISK ENCRYPTION ACKNOWLEDGED=true in .env required to boot . What this acknowledges: the app encrypts BYOK keys and uploaded documents at the application layer AES-256-GCM , but derived text vector chunks, chat history, analyses is stored in cleartext in the app, Postgres and Redis volumes — full-disk encryption of the host is YOUR responsibility. 4. Start the full stack bundled Postgres + Redis + Caddy : docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml up -d python3 scripts/setup production.py --create-env --domain <host does steps 1–2 for you it generates every secret and writes .env with mode 0600 . Then open https://$DOMAIN with DOMAIN=localhost : https://localhost https://localhost . On a localhost trial Caddy redirects HTTP to HTTPS and serves a certificate from its own self-signed local CA — the browser warning on first visit is expected. See "TLS on Internal Networks" in docs/deployment.md https://github.com/thomasunise/casecite/blob/main/docs/deployment.md to trust that CA or bring your own certificate. The first account you register becomes the admin, and registering it requires the REGISTRATION BOOTSTRAP TOKEN from .env — so nobody else who reaches a fresh instance can claim it. The exact command is under "Create the admin account" in docs/deployment.md https://github.com/thomasunise/casecite/blob/main/docs/deployment.md . After that, invite colleagues from Settings → Users; self-service registration is off by default. Deploying behind an existing reverse proxy Coolify/Traefik ? Use the root docker-compose.yml instead it expects an external Postgres and Redis and declares the persistent data volume , and read deploy/COOLIFY-SETUP.md — you must also set TRUSTED PROXIES to the proxy's subnet or client IPs collapse to one. Users provide AI provider keys via the Settings modal. What firm evaluators should know about custody: - Per-user keys are stored server-side , AES-256-GCM-encrypted PBKDF2 key derivation, HKDF per-record separation , in a file store on the data volume. - Keys are displayed masked-only and are never sent to the browser ; the backend decrypts them on demand for each request. - Env-configured fallback keys e.g. OPENAI API KEY in .env are shared by all users of the install — per-user cost attribution requires per-user BYOK keys. - ENCRYPTION SALT can be rotated without losing stored keys: keep the old value in ENCRYPTION SALT PREVIOUS and run python -m app.utils.reencrypt inside the backend container — see docs/secret-rotation.md . SECRET KEY cannot be rotated without making stored documents unreadable; keep it safe and backed up off the server. The stack fails closed on startup if any of these are missing or left as placeholders. | Variable | Description | |---|---| | SECRET KEY | JWT/CSRF signing key and root of at-rest encryption — openssl rand -hex 32 never change after first run | | ENCRYPTION SALT | At-rest encryption salt — openssl rand -hex 16 never change after first run except via the rotation procedure | | AUDIT HMAC KEY | Audit-log chain key — openssl rand -hex 32 | | POSTGRES PASSWORD | Password for the bundled Postgres | | REDIS PASSWORD | Password for the bundled Redis | | DOMAIN | Public hostname or localhost ; CORS ORIGINS + ALLOWED HOSTS default from it | | DISK ENCRYPTION ACKNOWLEDGED | Set true to acknowledge that full-disk encryption of the host volumes is your responsibility app-layer AES-256-GCM covers BYOK keys + document originals; derived text is cleartext | | REGISTRATION BOOTSTRAP TOKEN | Needed to register the first admin account — openssl rand -hex 16 | Not required to boot, but the product does little without them: | Variable | Description | |---|---| | OPENAI API KEY or another provider | Server-level provider key shared by all users. Without one, each user must save their own key under Settings before chat, analysis or indexing works. | | COURTLISTENER API TOKEN | CourtListener is the only case-law source in the app. Citation check requires a token; the other case-law tools work without one but are heavily rate-limited. Free token; see CourtListener API token courtlistener-api-token . | Using the root docker-compose.yml external DB/Redis instead of the bundled stack? Then DATABASE URL , REDIS URL , CORS ORIGINS , and ALLOWED HOSTS are required directly, and set DB SSL=require for a managed database. | Variable | Default | Description | |---|---|---| | ANTHROPIC API KEY | — | Claude access | | VOYAGE API KEY | — | Voyage AI legal embeddings | | OPENAI BASE URL | — | OpenAI-compatible endpoint for chat self-hosted model or gateway | | EMBEDDING BASE URL | — | OpenAI-compatible endpoint for embeddings; set with OPENAI BASE URL to keep document text on your network | | VECTOR DB | chroma | chroma local or pinecone stores document text with Pinecone | | TRUSTED PROXIES | 127.0.0.1 | Reverse-proxy IP/CIDR — required behind a proxy | | REQUIRE MFA | false | Require every password account to enrol TOTP MFA | | SESSION ABSOLUTE TIMEOUT HOURS / SESSION IDLE TIMEOUT MINUTES | 8 / 120 | Session lifetime and idle timeout | | ALLOW REGISTRATION | false | Allow self-service sign-up after the first account | | SENDGRID API KEY | — | Enables password-reset emails change-password works without it | .env.example documents every setting. - The sync API imports one folder folder id or, with an explicit sync all , the whole account. The UI has no folder picker yet: "Sync Now" imports the whole connected account after a second confirmation that says so. To bring in selected files, use the file pickers instead. Clio's listing is account-wide, so Clio cannot sync a single folder. - Filevine uses one firm-wide API key, so it is off until FILEVINE ENABLED=true and is then available to admins only. - The iManage and NetDocuments connectors are implemented against the vendors' published APIs but have not been validated against a live tenant. Test them in your environment before relying on them. - Microsoft and Google connections request read-only scopes. Connections made before this release keep their broader grant until reconnected. Legal tools, Judge intel, Case view, and the case-law side of the strategy engine all read from CourtListener https://www.courtlistener.com . CourtListener is the only case-law source in the app. The app starts without a token, but the case-law half of the product is not usable without one: - Citation check hard-fails without it — the service raises CourtListener API token required backend/app/services/courtlistener.py . - Every other CourtListener call falls back to anonymous access, which is rate-limited hard enough that research features become unusable under any real load. Get a free token at https://www.courtlistener.com/help/api/rest/ permissions https://www.courtlistener.com/help/api/rest/ permissions , then either set COURTLISTENER API TOKEN in .env , or save it instance-wide as an admin Settings → API Keys, or POST /api/v1/admin/integrations/courtlistener — the stored token overrides the .env value at runtime without a restart. backend/ app/ main.py FastAPI app, middleware, health config.py Pydantic settings routers/ API routers services/ rag/ RAG pipeline search, generation, citations, intent vectordb.py ChromaDB/Pinecone abstraction embeddings.py Multi-provider embeddings auth.py JWT auth strategy.py Matter strategy briefs courtlistener.py CourtListener API ... middleware/ Security, CSRF migrations/ Alembic migrations frontend/ src/ App.tsx api/ Per-domain API clients views/ Page views stores/ Zustand stores components/ Shared components + modals layout/ App shell scripts/ Backup/restore, production setup, key rotation, NOTICE generator docs/ Deployment, data flows, secret rotation, incident response, ADRs Dockerfile Unified image frontend + backend docker-compose.prod.yml Bundled stack: Caddy + Postgres + Redis + backend docker-compose.yml Behind an existing proxy Coolify/Traefik ; external Postgres + Redis docker-compose.dev.yml Local development These are implemented and reachable over the API, but the frontend does not expose them yet. Treat them as preview: - Matters /api/v1/matters — matter records, membership, and sharing of documents and chats between members. Creating matters and changing membership requires the matters.manage permission. - Strategy briefs /api/v1/strategy — each proposition is searched on CourtListener, candidate opinions are read, and a citation is kept only when a verbatim quote can be located in the real opinion text. Unsupported citations are dropped rather than shown. - Azure AD SSO — backend token exchange only; there is no sign-in button. SAML, generic OIDC and SCIM are not supported. Everything else in the feature table above, plus user administration and the audit log Settings, admins only , has a UI. - Password sign-in PBKDF2-SHA256 with optional or mandatory TOTP MFA and recovery codes; password reset by email and change-password in the app - JWT access tokens with rotating refresh tokens in httpOnly cookies, JTI revocation in Redis required in production , "sign out everywhere" - Sessions capped at 5 per user, with an 8-hour absolute lifetime and an idle timeout - Role-based permissions require permission , adjustable per role by an admin - Per-user and per-matter scoping on every document, chat and analysis - CSRF double-submit cookies, HMAC-signed; per-IP rate limiting; account lockout - AES-256-GCM at-rest encryption for uploaded originals, API keys, connector tokens and MFA secrets. The vector index and database rely on disk encryption that you provide - CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options, Permissions-Policy headers - Audit log with HMAC-SHA256 chain hashing, verified at startup and on demand CaseCite holds no security certification SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA . What it does and does not do is described in SECURITY.md https://github.com/thomasunise/casecite/blob/main/SECURITY.md , which also explains how to report a vulnerability; known gaps are listed in ROADMAP.md https://github.com/thomasunise/casecite/blob/main/ROADMAP.md . See CONTRIBUTING.md https://github.com/thomasunise/casecite/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md . PRs welcome for the source-available product. Note that contributions are licensed under ELv2.