Open-source · Local-first · Human-approved

An autonomous legal intelligence operating system.

OpenLegal watches a local case repository, classifies legal issues, researches legal authority, and drafts strategy — then stops at a human gate before anything has consequences. Fail-closed privacy by default.

Terminal, browser, and API interfaces · no case data is ever exposed on this site.

What OpenLegal does

OpenLegal is software, not an outcome. It turns a filesystem of case files into a continuously updated intelligence loop — and it waits for you.

Observe & classify Implemented

New or changed case files are discovered, indexed into a ledger, and classified into legal issues — on a local-first loop with event provenance.

Architecture

Research authority Implemented

Legal questions are planned and researched against an authority store, with provenance, gaps, risks, and opportunities surfaced explicitly.

Research

Strategy under debate Implemented

A council of specialist roles debates, and a strategy engine produces options, war games, and contingencies — adversarial review included.

Strategy

Stop at the human gate Implemented

Nothing leaves the loop without approval. Drafts are surfaced in the terminal, browser, or API — you decide what happens next.

Privacy & safety

Three ways to work with it

One system, three operational surfaces. Every surface reads the same ledger, governance, and audit chain.

Terminal

The openlegal command line drives the engine with 12 operational commands — from health to audit to an interactive operations console.

Terminal UI

Browser

A FastAPI application serves a Matter Command Center plus a 150+ route API for status, intelligence, strategy, and living-matter views.

Browser UI

API

Every surface is scriptable. Read state, submit approvals, and query research & strategy through a machine-readable interface.

API overview

Design commitments

Fail-closed privacy

Model routing is blocked by default. UNKNOWN providers are denied rather than guessed. Nothing transits before a privacy check passes.

How it works

Provenance & audit

Every event carries a provenance record; model invocations are logged as hash-only audit entries — no raw content, no secrets.

Security posture

Honest status

The system reports what is verified, what is partial, and what is blocked — never a fabricated pass. See the capability matrix.

Project status

Recoverable by design

Idempotent events, deterministic reruns, and kill-and-restart recovery mean the loop resumes cleanly.

Resilience

The loop at a glance

Observe → classify → research → strategize → → approve. Circular, continuous, and always human-gated.

OBSERVE

Filesystem watch

Discover new and changed matter files; index them into the intelligence ledger.

CLASSIFY

Issue extraction

Classify legal questions, entities, and epistemic status from each matter.

RESEARCH

Authority & gaps

Plan research, consult the authority store, and surface gaps, risks, and opportunities.

STRATEGY

Council & war games

Specialist roles debate; strategy engine produces options and contingencies under adversarial review.

APPROVE

Human gate

Drafts and approvals are surfaced to a human. Nothing proceeds without approval.

Website vs. application

This website is the public product site. The OpenLegal runtime is an application installed locally on the operator machine under the openlegal CLI; it never runs from this website, and no case data, credentials, or configuration is ever published here.