Lauyer Skill

Search Portuguese court jurisprudence (DGSI) and legislation (Diário da República). Outputs clean markdown optimized for LLM consumption.

Installation

No Rust or compilation required. Download the pre-built binary for your platform from Releases:

macOS (Apple Silicon)

curl -L https://github.com/nikuscs/lauyer/releases/latest/download/lauyer-macos-arm64.tar.gz | tar xz
chmod +x lauyer
sudo mv lauyer /usr/local/bin/

Linux (x64)

curl -L https://github.com/nikuscs/lauyer/releases/latest/download/lauyer-linux-x64.tar.gz | tar xz
chmod +x lauyer
sudo mv lauyer /usr/local/bin/

Windows

Download lauyer-windows-x64.zip from Releases, extract, and add the folder to your PATH.

Verify

lauyer --help

When to use (trigger phrases)

Use this skill when the user asks:

• "search Portuguese law for..."
• "find court decisions about..."
• "what does Portuguese law say about..."
• "search DGSI for..."
• "find jurisprudência about..."
• "search Diário da República..."
• "latest portarias about..."
• "decretos-lei about..."
• "today's legislation"
• "what laws were published today?"
• Any mention of Portuguese law, court decisions, jurisprudence, DGSI, Diário da República, portarias, decretos-lei, leis, despachos, or legal research in Portugal

DGSI — Court Jurisprudence

Search court decisions across 10 Portuguese courts in parallel.

# Search all courts
lauyer dgsi search "usucapião"

# Search specific court
lauyer dgsi search "contrato trabalho" --court stj

# Multiple courts
lauyer dgsi search "responsabilidade civil" --court stj --court rel-porto

# Date filtering
lauyer dgsi search "despejo" --since 2024-01-01 --until 2024-12-31
lauyer dgsi search "arrendamento" --recent 1y

# Sort and limit
lauyer dgsi search "herança" --limit 10 --sort date

# Fetch full decision text
lauyer dgsi search "abuso de direito" --court stj --limit 3 --fetch-full

# Fetch a single decision by URL
lauyer dgsi fetch "https://www.dgsi.pt/jstj.nsf/..."

# List all courts
lauyer dgsi courts

Courts: stj, sta, conflitos, rel-porto, rel-lisboa, rel-coimbra, rel-guimaraes, rel-evora, tca-sul, tca-norte

DGSI Search Options

Flag	Description	Example
--court	Filter by court (repeatable)	--court stj --court sta
--since	Earliest date (YYYY-MM-DD)	--since 2024-01-01
--until	Latest date (YYYY-MM-DD)	--until 2024-12-31
--recent	Relative window (30d, 6m, 1y)	--recent 1y
--limit	Max results (default: 50)	--limit 10
--sort	Sort order: relevance, date	--sort date
--fetch-full	Fetch full decision text	--fetch-full
--field	Structured search field name	--field relator
--value	Structured search field value	--value "Santos Cabral"

DR — Diário da República

Search legislation, portarias, decretos-lei, and other official acts.

# Search Portarias from the past week
lauyer dr search --type portaria --recent 1w

# Full-text search
lauyer dr search "trabalho" --type decreto-lei --recent 1m

# Search 2nd series (Despachos, Avisos)
lauyer dr search --content atos-2 --type despacho --recent 1w

# Judicial decisions published in DR
lauyer dr search --content decisoes --recent 1m

# Date range
lauyer dr search --type portaria --since 2026-03-01 --until 2026-03-21

# Fetch full text for each result
lauyer dr search --type portaria --recent 1w --limit 3 --fetch-full

# Today's publications
lauyer dr today
lauyer dr today --type portaria

# List available act types
lauyer dr types

Content types: atos-1 (1st series), atos-2 (2nd series), dr (whole DR issues), decisoes (judicial decisions)

Act types: portaria, decreto-lei, lei, despacho, decreto, aviso, resolucao, retificacao, decreto-regulamentar, lei-organica

DR Search Options

Flag	Description	Example
--type	Act type filter (repeatable)	--type portaria --type lei
--content	Content type filter (repeatable)	--content atos-1
--since	Earliest date (YYYY-MM-DD)	--since 2026-01-01
--until	Latest date (YYYY-MM-DD)	--until 2026-03-21
--recent	Relative window (1w, 1m, 1y)	--recent 1w
--limit	Max results (default: 50)	--limit 10
--fetch-full	Fetch full legislation text	--fetch-full

Output Formats

lauyer dgsi search "insolvência" --court stj --format json       # structured JSON
lauyer dgsi search "insolvência" --court stj --format table      # terminal table
lauyer dr search --type lei --recent 1m --output resultados.json  # write to file (format auto-detected)

Compact Mode

lauyer dgsi search "penhora" --no-compact       # full output, no boilerplate stripping
lauyer dr search "IRS" --recent 1w --strip-stopwords  # remove Portuguese stop words

Global Options

Flag	Description	Example
--format	Output: markdown, json, table	--format json
--output	Write to file	--output results.md
--no-compact	Disable boilerplate stripping	--no-compact
--strip-stopwords	Remove Portuguese stop words	--strip-stopwords
--proxy	Proxy URL (socks5/http)	--proxy socks5://host:port
--config	Path to config file	--config ~/lauyer.toml
--quiet	Suppress progress bars	--quiet

Common Workflows

Research a legal topic

# 1. Get recent STJ decisions
lauyer dgsi search "usucapião" --court stj --recent 2y --sort date --limit 20

# 2. Get full text of the most relevant ones
lauyer dgsi search "usucapião" --court stj --recent 2y --sort date --limit 3 --fetch-full

# 3. Check for related legislation
lauyer dr search "usucapião" --content atos-1 --recent 1y

Monitor new legislation

# Today's portarias
lauyer dr today --type portaria

# This week's decretos-lei
lauyer dr search --type decreto-lei --recent 1w

# All publications from a date range
lauyer dr search --since 2026-03-01 --until 2026-03-21

Cross-reference courts

# Same topic across multiple courts
lauyer dgsi search "responsabilidade civil" --court stj --limit 5
lauyer dgsi search "responsabilidade civil" --court sta --limit 5
lauyer dgsi search "responsabilidade civil" --court rel-porto --limit 5

JSON pipeline

# Extract just case references
lauyer dgsi search "insolvência" --court stj --format json | jq '.[].processo'

# Count results per court
lauyer dgsi search "trabalho" --format json | jq 'group_by(.court) | map({court: .[0].court, count: length})'

HTTP API

If the user has a lauyer server running, they must provide the base URL (e.g. http://localhost:3000 or https://lauyer.example.com). Do not guess the URL — ask the user for it. To start a local server:

lauyer serve --port 3000
# Env vars: LAUYER_PORT, LAUYER_HOST

All endpoints return markdown by default. Add ?format=json for JSON, ?format=table for table. Examples below use $LAUYER_URL as a placeholder — replace with the actual server URL.

GET /health

Returns {"status":"ok","version":"0.1.0"}.

GET /dgsi/search

Param	Required	Description
q	yes	Search query
court	no	Comma-separated court aliases (default: all)
since	no	Start date YYYY-MM-DD
until	no	End date YYYY-MM-DD
limit	no	Max results (default: 50)
sort	no	relevance (default) or date
fetch_full	no	true to fetch full decision text
compact	no	true/false override compact mode
format	no	markdown, json, table

curl "$LAUYER_URL/dgsi/search?q=usucapiao&court=stj,sta&limit=5&sort=date&format=json"

GET /dgsi/fetch

Param	Required	Description
url	yes	Full DGSI decision URL
format	no	markdown, json, table
compact	no	true/false

curl "$LAUYER_URL/dgsi/fetch?url=https://www.dgsi.pt/jstj.nsf/...&format=json"

GET /dgsi/courts

Param	Required	Description
format	no	markdown (default) or json

GET /dr/search

Param	Required	Description
q	no	Full-text search query
type	no	Comma-separated act type aliases (portaria, lei, etc.)
content	no	Comma-separated content types (default: atos-1)
since	no	Start date YYYY-MM-DD
until	no	End date YYYY-MM-DD
limit	no	Max results (default: 50)
fetch_full	no	true to fetch full legislation text
compact	no	true/false
format	no	markdown, json, table

curl "$LAUYER_URL/dr/search?q=trabalho&type=portaria,lei&content=atos-1&since=2026-03-01&format=json"

GET /dr/today

Param	Required	Description
type	no	Comma-separated act type aliases
compact	no	true/false
format	no	markdown, json, table

curl "$LAUYER_URL/dr/today?type=portaria&format=json"

GET /dr/types

Param	Required	Description
format	no	markdown (default) or json

GET /dr/fetch

Fetch full text of a specific DR legislation act by its document ID.

Param	Required	Description
id	yes	Document ID (conteudo_id from search results)
tipo	no	Act type (e.g. portaria, decreto-lei)
numero	no	Act number (e.g. 123-A/2026/1)
year	no	Publication year
format	no	markdown, json, table
compact	no	true/false

curl "$LAUYER_URL/dr/fetch?id=1075294778&tipo=portaria&numero=123-A/2026/1&year=2026&format=json"

Agent Guidelines

Important: Interpretation Disclaimer

Extracted text MAY contain interpretation errors. When presenting DR full text to users, always include the official verification link (dr_url or eli from the response) so they can check the original source.

Best Practices

1. Default to markdown output when presenting to users — it's pre-compacted for LLM context
2. Use --format json when you need to process or filter results programmatically
3. Limit results with --limit 5-10 for quick answers, --limit 20-50 for thorough research
4. Use --fetch-full only when the user needs actual decision/legislation text, not just metadata
5. Use --recent to scope searches temporally — 1w, 1m, 6m, 1y
6. Combine --court with --sort date for targeted, chronological results
7. For DR follow-ups, search by act name with --fetch-full: lauyer dr search "portaria 123-A/2026" --limit 1 --fetch-full
8. The conteudo_id field in DR search results can be used later to fetch full text via /dr/fetch

Response Formatting

When presenting results to users:

• Show the most relevant 3-5 results with case number, date, court, and summary
• Include the DGSI URL for each result so users can read the full decision
• Mention total results found and suggest narrowing if too many
• For DR results, highlight the act type, number, and publication date
• When showing DR full text, always include the dr_url link for official verification
• Offer to fetch full text if the user wants to read a specific decision or legislation

Understanding Courts

• STJ (Supremo Tribunal de Justiça) — Supreme Court, highest civil/criminal court
• STA (Supremo Tribunal Administrativo) — Supreme Administrative Court
• Relações (rel-porto, rel-lisboa, etc.) — Appeals courts by region
• TCA (tca-sul, tca-norte) — Central Administrative Courts
• Conflitos — Conflicts tribunal (jurisdiction disputes)

Start with STJ for authoritative precedent, use Relações for regional case law.

Proxy Support

# SOCKS5 proxy
lauyer --proxy "socks5://127.0.0.1:1080" dgsi search "trabalho"

# HTTP proxy
lauyer --proxy "http://proxy:8080" dgsi search "trabalho"

Tips

• DGSI uses Latin-1 encoding — lauyer handles the conversion automatically
• DR requires session initialization (CSRF + cookies) — lauyer handles this transparently
• Compact mode strips legal boilerplate headers — use --no-compact for raw output
• --strip-stopwords removes common Portuguese words for minimal token usage
• Configuration can be set via lauyer.toml in the working directory or ~/.config/lauyer/lauyer.toml