California Jury Instructions

What California Jury Instructions does

The California Jury Instructions MCP server gives AI clients access to the current 2026 editions of California Civil Jury Instructions (CACI) and California Criminal Jury Instructions (CALCRIM). The source material comes from the Judicial Council of California's published PDFs. Responses include the adopted instruction text and may include supporting material such as Directions for Use, Bench Notes, Sources and Authority, related issues, secondary sources, commentary, and revision history, depending on the instruction set.

This listing belongs in the ⚖️ Legal category and is intended for workflows that need to identify or inspect California jury instructions. It is an independent integration and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or published by the Judicial Council.

How it works

A California Jury Instructions MCP server connection exposes tools through either the Pipeworx gateway or a standalone package. The gateway endpoint is available at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/california-jury-instructions/mcp; the local package communicates over stdin and stdout using MCP. The gateway endpoint also lists shared Pipeworx meta-tools, while the standalone package exposes only the tools for this instruction pack.

The underlying data is prepared from the full current-edition PDFs rather than fetched from a per-instruction API. A build process parses the PDFs and creates an index keyed to official instruction numbers and titles. The published responses identify the Judicial Council source and source URL. No key, account, or registration is required for the documented hosted calls or standalone installation.

Setup and configuration

Add the hosted MCP URL to a compatible client, or run the package locally with npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-california-jury-instructions. The local mode does not require a Pipeworx account or a gateway round trip. The hosted service can also be called over HTTP; for example, a POST to /v1/tools/caci_lookup with {"number":"303"} requests CACI instruction 303.

The README names Claude Desktop, Cursor, and Windsurf as example MCP clients. A full Pipeworx gateway URL is also available when an agent needs access to other Pipeworx data sources, although the California-specific endpoint is sufficient for this pack's direct tools.

Tools and capabilities

• caci_lookup(number) retrieves a CACI civil instruction or verdict form by number, such as 303 or VF-303.
• calcrim_lookup(number) retrieves a CALCRIM criminal instruction or verdict form, such as 200 or VF-200.
• ca_ji_search(query, set?) searches official instruction and verdict-form titles, with an optional CACI, CALCRIM, or combined scope.
• ca_ji_editions(set?) reports the current edition year and adoption date and provides links to archived edition PDFs.

Lookup results are based on adopted material. For example, CACI 303 concerns breach of contract essential factual elements, while CALCRIM 200 concerns duties of judge and jury. Search is useful for finding an instruction number from a topic or charge before making a full lookup.

Limitations and notes

The California Jury Instructions MCP server serves text from the current baked edition only. Archived editions are linked by URL, but their exact text is not extracted and cannot be retrieved through the pack. Proposed revisions in the Judicial Council's public-comment process are outside the dataset.

ca_ji_search searches titles and series names, not the full body text of instructions. The hosted endpoint includes shared gateway meta-tools in addition to the pack tools, so its tool list may be larger than the four tools documented here. The standalone package does not include those shared tools. The package is released under the MIT license, and the source publications include a reprint grant requiring appropriate citation.