California Code — California statutes by citation

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

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1683+ live data sources.

Auth

None. Both tools are keyless.

Why this isn't a mirror

The probe that led to this pack (docs/state-law-probe.md) found California publishing a ~1.0 GB bulk drop daily and sized the work as a CourtListener-style mirror. It doesn't need to be one — leginfo serves any section directly:

?lawCode=PEN&sectionNum=187  →  "187. (a) Murder is the unlawful killing…"

So this is the us-code shape, not the CourtListener shape: no storage, no recurring cost, no quarterly refresh obligation. That matters well beyond California — it means the other 49 states are 49 small packs rather than 49 mirrors, which changes whether the long tail is worth building at all.

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 upstream 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. Treating that page as an answer would report "no such law" as though it were the law.
• 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 Repealed and reserved numbers are normal; a miss is usually a real gap rather than a bad request.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

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/ — California Legislative Information. California statutes are public record.

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "california-code": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/california-code/mcp"
    }
  }
}

What this endpoint actually serves

tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/california-code/mcp returns the tools in the table above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx, discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and is the authoritative answer for a given day.

This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth, connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.

Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipeworx": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1683+ data sources. The only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx reaches all of them from either one.

No MCP client? Call it over HTTP

curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/ca_code_section \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"code":"PEN","section":"187"}'

No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/ca_code_section. Find one: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs with {"query":"..."}.

Standalone (no gateway account)

This package also runs as a local stdio MCP server — no Pipeworx account, no gateway round-trip:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "california-code": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-california-code"]
    }
  }
}

Or run it directly to confirm it starts:

npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-california-code

It speaks MCP over stdin/stdout and answers initialize/tools/list/tools/call for only this pack's tools — none of the shared meta-tools the gateway connection above adds. Same source, same tools, no ask_pipeworx routing.

Using with ask_pipeworx

Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:

ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about California Code data" })

The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.

More

• Docs and guides
• pipeworx.io

License

MIT