Canlii MCP server

CanLII MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for searching Canadian legal information via the CanLII API. Search cases, browse legislation, and check citations — all from Claude Desktop or Claude Code.

npx canlii-mcp

Features

• Full-text search — search across all of CanLII by keyword, case name, or legal concept
• Case citator — check if a case is still good law by finding what later cases cite it
• Legislation browsing — browse statutes and regulations by jurisdiction
• Bilingual — English and French support across all tools including the citator
• 9 tools — search, browse courts, browse cases, case metadata, full citator, citator preview, legislation databases, browse legislation, legislation metadata
• Built-in rate limiting — serialized request queue respects CanLII's API limits (2 req/sec, 1 concurrent, 5,000/day)
• Input validation — all parameters regex-validated and URI-encoded to prevent injection
• Minimal footprint — 2 runtime dependencies, ~500 lines of code, runs locally as a stdio process
• Security-first — no file system access, no shell execution, only connects to api.canlii.org

Quick Start

Prerequisites: Node.js 18+ and a CanLII API key (free for research use).

Claude Desktop — add to your config (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claudedesktopconfig.json on macOS):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "canlii": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "canlii-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "CANLII_API_KEY": "your_api_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop after saving.

Claude Code:

claude mcp add canlii -e CANLII_API_KEY=your_key -- npx -y canlii-mcp

From source (for development):

git clone https://github.com/mohammadfarooqi/canlii-mcp.git
cd canlii-mcp
npm install && npm run build

Available Tools (9)

search

Full-text keyword search across all of CanLII — cases, legislation, and commentary. This is the primary entry point for legal research.

search({ query: "material change in circumstances Ontario", resultCount: 10 })

getcourtsand_tribunals

List all available court and tribunal databases. Returns database IDs needed by other tools.

Key Ontario databases: onsc (Superior Court), onca (Court of Appeal), oncj (Court of Justice), csc-scc (Supreme Court of Canada).

getcaselaw_decisions

Browse case law decisions from a specific court database, ordered by most recently added. Supports date filters.

get_case_law_decisions({ databaseId: "onsc", resultCount: 20 })

getcasemetadata

Get full details for a specific case — citation, decision date, docket number, keywords, and CanLII URL for reading the full decision.

get_case_metadata({ databaseId: "onsc", caseId: "2021onsc8582" })

getcasecitator

Look up citation relationships for a case. Use citingCases to check if a case is still good law.

get_case_citator({ databaseId: "csc-scc", caseId: "1996canlii190", metadataType: "citingCases" })

getcasecitator_tease

Quick citation preview returning max 5 results. Faster than the full citator for a quick check.

get_case_citator_tease({ databaseId: "csc-scc", caseId: "1996canlii190", metadataType: "citingCases" })

getlegislationdatabases

List all legislation databases. Ontario: ons (Statutes), onr (Regulations). Federal: cas (Statutes), car (Regulations).

browse_legislation

List legislation items within a specific database.

browse_legislation({ databaseId: "ons" })

getlegislationregulation_metadata

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.