Traverse the citation network

Citation graph traversal around a seed case. Returns directed nodes and edges plus per-edge treatment hints, a topCitedBy ranking of the most influential subsequent citers, and bi-directional traversal in one call.

Why this exists

Most case-law APIs expose raw cited-by lists, with no depth control, no treatment classification, no influence ranking. We do all four.

Cost ladder (US)

Depth	Credits	USD	What you get
1	10	$0.10	Immediate citing-by + cites-to neighbours
2	25	$0.25	One additional hop on each neighbour

India: flat 5 credits ($0.05).

Pick your seed

• clusterId — US only. Fastest. Get it from /citations/resolve or /research/search.
• citation — works for both jurisdictions. We resolve it before traversal.

US response shape

The seed object plus two arrays:

• nodes — every non-seed case touched, with clusterId, caseName, citation, dateFiled, citeCount, absoluteUrl.
• edges — directed: source cites target. Each carries:
  • direction: cited (source cites the seed) or citing (seed cites the source, i.e. authority).
  • depth: 1 or 2.
  • treatment: positive / negative / neutral / unknown. Heuristic classifier on the citation window in the citer’s opinion.
  • snippet: the actual citation context when enrichment succeeded.

Plus summary fields:

• counts: {cited, citingBy, total, positive, negative, neutral, unknown}.
• topCitedBy: top 5 citing-by nodes ranked by their own forward citation count. These are the cases that most carry the seed forward.

India response shape

Legacy graph with nodes / edges keyed by SCR / INSC citations. relationshipType is root / cited / cited_by; treatment is one of followed / distinguished / overruled / referred.

For more details, see the API Reference.

GET /api/v1/citations/cases/network

Traverse the citation network

cURL

curl --request GET \
  --url https://api.vaquill.ai/api/v1/citations/cases/network \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer <token>'

200

us_depth1

{ "data": { "seed": { "clusterId": 108713, "caseName": "Roe v. Wade", "citation": "410 U.S. 113", "dateFiled": "1973-01-22", "citeCount": 5579, "absoluteUrl": "https://app.vaquill.ai/research/cases/108713" }, "depth": 1, "nodes": [ { "clusterId": 110075, "caseName": "Bell v. Wolfish", "citation": "441 U.S. 520", "dateFiled": "1979-05-14", "citeCount": 11402, "absoluteUrl": "https://app.vaquill.ai/research/cases/110075" }, { "clusterId": 109301, "caseName": "Warth v. Seldin", "citation": "422 U.S. 490", "dateFiled": "1975-06-25", "citeCount": 10851, "absoluteUrl": "https://app.vaquill.ai/research/cases/109301" } ], "edges": [ { "sourceClusterId": 110075, "targetClusterId": 108713, "direction": "cited", "depth": 1, "treatment": "positive", "snippet": "the court relied on the detainee's desire... fundamental liberty interests delineated in cases such as Roe" }, { "sourceClusterId": 109301, "targetClusterId": 108713, "direction": "cited", "depth": 1, "treatment": "neutral", "snippet": "See also Roe v. Wade for the principle." } ], "counts": { "cited": 10, "citingBy": 10, "total": 20, "positive": 1, "negative": 0, "neutral": 9, "unknown": 10 }, "topCitedBy": [ { "clusterId": 110075, "caseName": "Bell v. Wolfish", "citation": "441 U.S. 520", "dateFiled": "1979-05-14", "citeCount": 11402, "absoluteUrl": "https://app.vaquill.ai/research/cases/110075" } ] }, "meta": { "processingTimeMs": 9263.4, "creditsConsumed": 10, "creditsRemaining": 4990 } }

Authorizations

Authorization · string · header · required

API key issued from the Vaquill developer dashboard. Pass as Authorization: Bearer vq_key_...

Query Parameters

citation · string | null

Root citation. For India: SCR/INSC/SCC/AIR. For US: any Bluebook citation, or use clusterId instead.

Required string length: 3 - 200

clusterId · integer | null

US only. Vaquill case cluster ID. Faster than a citation string because it skips the resolution step.

Required range: x >= 1

direction · enum<string> · default: both

Traversal direction (India only).

Available options: outbound, inbound, both

depth · integer · default: 2

Max hops (1-3)

Required range: 1 <= x <= 3

limit · integer · default: 50

Max nodes (1-100)

Required range: 1 <= x <= 100

countryCode · string | null

ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code (e.g. IN for India). Reserved for future multi-jurisdiction support. Currently the dataset covers India only, so requests for other country codes will return empty results naturally from the database.

Response

200

application/json

Citation network graph. Response shape differs between US and India.

Top-level response for GET /citations/cases/network.

data · NetworkData · object · required

Data payload for the network endpoint.

Show child attributes

meta · CitationApiMeta · object · required

Metadata returned with every citation API response.

Show child attributes