@pipeworx/california-code

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Tools: 2

The text of California’s 29 codes. Give it PEN and 187, get back the murder statute.

Auth

None. Both tools are keyless.

Where the answers come from

A stored copy of the California Legislature’s official code database answers first. The Legislature publishes it in bulk; a weekly job refreshes the copy, and every answer carries data_as_of (the date the Legislature published that release) and answered_from (stored_copy or live).

When a section is not in the copy, the pack asks the Legislature’s public code pages directly. That live path used to be the only path; it now answers a challenge page to many callers, which is why the copy exists. If the copy lacks the section and the live page refuses, the call fails loudly and says which of the two it tried. It never returns an empty success.

Before the first load there is no copy, and the pack behaves exactly as it did when it was live only.

Tools

ca_code_section({code: "PEN", section: "187"})
  → located_in: PART 1 → TITLE 8 → CHAPTER 1. Homicide
    last_affected: Amended by Stats. 2023, Ch. 260, Sec. 14. (SB 345)

Caveats worth passing on

• The live page fails silently, and this pack does not. A nonexistent section returns HTTP 200 with a kilobyte of page furniture and no statute — no error, no 404. We detect the missing content container and return an explicit section_not_found. A challenge page served with a 200 is treated as a refusal, not as “no such law”.
• A section can have several versions. About 680 sections carry two or more concurrent versions (an amendment and the version that replaces it on a later operative date). All are returned, oldest first, with version_count.
• The California Constitution is not served. Its section numbers repeat across articles, so a code and section number do not identify one text.
• Subdivisions are not separate documents. 187(a) renders the same empty shell upstream, so it’s stripped to 187 and the response says so.
• Section numbers are not contiguous. Repealed and reserved numbers are normal; a miss is usually a real gap rather than a bad request.
• last_affected is per section, which is better currency than the federal code can offer — us-code can only tell you which annual edition the text came from.

Related

• us-code — federal statutes, the same citation-resolver shape
• court-listener — California cases interpreting these sections, with full text
• recap — federal filings

Data source

California Legislative Counsel, California Codes: the official legislative database published by the California Legislature. California statutes are public record. The copy is refreshed weekly; data_as_of says which release answered.

Tools

• ca_code_section — Get the FULL TEXT of a section of the California Codes — California state statutes — by citation. “Penal Code 187” is code “PEN”, section “187”. Returns the statutory text, where it sits in the code,
• ca_codes — List the 29 California codes with their subjects — Penal Code is PEN, Vehicle Code is VEH, Labor Code is LAB, and so on. Keyless. Use when you know the subject area but not which code governs it, befo