Louisiana Code README

@pipeworx/louisiana-code

Louisiana law by citation — Revised Statutes, Civil Code, Code of Civil Procedure, Code of Criminal Procedure, Code of Evidence, Children's Code and the Louisiana Constitution — with each section's enactment and amendment history parsed out, plus full-text topic search across those code bodies and a browse of every section in one Revised Statutes title. Keyless, sourced live from the Louisiana State Legislature.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1704+ live data sources. This is an independent, unofficial integration — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or published by the upstream provider.

Tools

• louisiana_statute(citation | doc_id) — full text of one section: "RS 14:20", "La. R.S. 9:2800.1", "14:20", "CC 2315", "La. C.C. art. 2315", "CCP 966", "C.Cr.P. art. 701", "CE 404", "CHC 603", "Const. Art. I, §5" / "CONST 1:5", or the legis.la.gov doc_id a search result carries. Returns heading, hierarchy (the chapter/title lines above the section), text, the trailing history line ("Added by Acts 1976, No. 655, §1. Amended by Acts 2014, No. 163, §1.") parsed into amendments ({year, act, session}), and last_amended_year.
• louisiana_law_search(query, bodies?, limit?) — full-text search by topic/keyword ("vehicular homicide", "security deposit lessor", "comparative fault"), optionally narrowed to code bodies (RS, CC, CCP, CCRP, CE, CHC, CONST, CA, HRULE, SRULE, JRULE; default all). Relevance-ranked rows with citation, heading, last-modified date and doc_id, plus the source's total.
• louisiana_title_contents(title, filter?, offset?, limit?) — every section of one Revised Statutes title with its heading and doc_id (Title 14 has 729, Title 32 has 870), optionally filtered by a word in the heading; repealed sections are flagged.

Auth

Keyless.

Data sources

• https://legis.la.gov/Legis/Law.aspx?d=78338 — one section page (that id is RS 14:20). Citation in #ctl00_PageBody_LabelName, text as <P> paragraphs in #ctl00_PageBody_LabelDocument, last paragraph = history.
• https://legis.la.gov/Legis/LawSearch.aspx — the "View a Specific Law" form and the text-search form.
• https://legis.la.gov/Legis/LawSearchList.aspx — where the search form cross-page-posts; renders the result rows.
• https://legis.la.gov/Legis/Laws_Toc.aspx?folder=75&level=Parent — the Revised Statutes table of contents (one LinkButton postback per title).

Shape of this source, because it is a WebForms site and not an API

Everything is reachable with plain HTTP — no cookie, no JavaScript, no CAPTCHA, no Lexis hop — but three of the four routes are form POSTs:

1. Doc ids are not in citation order. d=78337 is RS 14:2, d=78338 is RS 14:20, d=78339 is RS 14:201 (string-sorted). So a citation cannot be computed into a URL; the "View a Specific Law" form does the mapping. POST the form's hidden __VIEWSTATE/__EVENTVALIDATION fields plus ddlLawBodies, tbFirstNumber, tbSecondNumber and btnViewLaw=View; the server answers 302 to Law.aspx?d=<id>. An unknown citation re-renders the form with HTTP 200 and no redirect — that is the not-found signal (there is no message).
2. Non-RS bodies need the dropdown's own postback first. Selecting Civil Code etc. is a __doPostBack('...ddlLawBodies') that switches the form to a single "Article" box; posting the article number against the fresh RS-state form is silently ignored. The pack runs that switch once per body and caches the resulting hidden fields.
3. The viewstate is not session-bound. One GET of the form supplies fields that stay valid for repeated POSTs (verified: two different citations resolved off the same fields, no cookie ever set). The pack caches them per isolate for 30 minutes and refreshes once on a POST that comes back without a redirect, so a warm citation lookup is one POST + one GET.
4. Search posts to LawSearchList.aspx, not back to the form (the button's WebForm_PostBackOptions names it). The per-body checkboxes are cbLaws$0..cbLaws$10 (0 CHC, 1 CC, 2 CCP, 3 CCRP, 4 CE, 5 CA, 6 CONST, 7 HRULE, 8 JRULE, 9 RS, 10 SRULE); cbLaws$11 "Select All" is client-side JavaScript only — the server ignores it, so "all bodies" means ticking all ten. A single-hit search 302s straight to the section page. The list renders the first 100 of N, relevance-sorted, and states N ("There are 347 sections of law in this list").
5. A one-word query that matches too many sections is refused silently: "tax" against RS 302s back to the blank form, byte-identical to a fresh GET. The pack reports that as search_rejected with a hint to add a word. The engine ANDs every word; a or b, a not b and ""exact phrase"" (doubled quotes) are its own syntax.
6. Pages hard-wrap paragraphs with raw newlines. The history paragraph of RS 14:30 spans nine source lines. Split on <P> tags, never on newlines, or the history line fragments and only its first piece reads as history.
7. Form field names contain . encodes it as , which is what IIS expects; a body that leaves literal gets the form re-rendered with HTTP 200 and nothing else.

The four capabilities, and the one the source cannot do

laws_current_through on every response is the legislature's own "updated through the …" line (e.g. "2025 First Extraordinary Session"), read from the search form.

Quick Start

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

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

What this endpoint actually serves

tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/louisiana-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 1704+ 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/louisiana_statute \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"citation":"RS 14:20"}'

No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/louisiana_statute. 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": {
    "louisiana-code": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-louisiana-code"]
    }
  }
}

Or run it directly to confirm it starts:

npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-louisiana-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 Louisiana Code data" })

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

More

• Docs and guides
• pipeworx.io

License

MIT