PaperClipAI/skills/paperclip/references/cases.md

Cases

Cases are agent-owned work records for durable outputs such as blog posts, research packets, release notes, incidents, QA runs, or generated asset sets. They are company-scoped and live beside issues: issues coordinate work, while cases preserve the structured object an agent is producing.

Cases are experimental and must be enabled with experimental.enableCases. If a route returns 403 Cases are disabled, stop and report that the operator must enable cases before the skill can use this surface.

Core Model

A case has:

• identifier: server-assigned display id such as PAP-C42
• caseType: skill-owned type such as blog_post, image_assets, or incident
• key: optional deterministic upsert key inside (companyId, caseType)
• title and optional summary
• status: draft, in_progress, in_review, approved, done, or cancelled
• fields: JSON object owned by the skill using the case
• parentCaseId: optional parent case for child work
• documents, attachments, issue links, labels, and events

Use deterministic caseType + key when a skill may be retried. Repeating POST /api/companies/:companyId/cases with the same caseType and key upserts the same case instead of creating a duplicate.

Upsert Semantics

POST /api/companies/:companyId/cases creates or upserts a case.

Request:

{
  "caseType": "blog_post",
  "key": "launch-announcement",
  "title": "Launch announcement",
  "summary": "Draft launch post for operators.",
  "status": "draft",
  "fields": {
    "slug": "launch-announcement",
    "target_audience": "operators"
  }
}

Response:

• 201 when a new case was created
• 200 when an existing (caseType, key) case was updated

Field behavior on upsert:

• title is required and replaces the previous title.
• projectId, summary, status, fields, and parentCaseId replace the previous value when present.
• Omitted optional values preserve the previous value during upsert.
• fields is replaced as a whole object when provided. It is not deep-merged. Send the complete desired JSON object each time.
• Concurrent retries with the same (caseType, key) converge to one case.

Do not use a random key for retryable skills. Use a stable content slug, external id, source URL hash, or parent-derived request key.

Read And Search

Get a case by UUID or identifier:

GET /api/cases/PAP-C42

List cases for a company:

GET /api/companies/:companyId/cases?type=blog_post&status=active&q=launch

Useful filters:

• type: exact caseType
• status: exact lifecycle status, or active for non-terminal cases
• projectId / project: project UUID
• labelId / label: label UUID
• q: identifier, title, summary, or key search
• limit: 1-200, default 100

Documents

Use case documents for rich bodies such as drafts, briefs, reports, or plans.

PUT /api/cases/:caseIdOrIdentifier/documents/body
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "title": "Launch announcement body",
  "format": "markdown",
  "body": "# Launch announcement\n\nDraft copy...",
  "changeSummary": "Initial draft"
}

Updating an existing case document requires baseRevisionId:

{
  "baseRevisionId": "latest-revision-uuid",
  "body": "Updated body"
}

If you get 409 stale_base_revision, refetch the case detail, read the latest document revision id, merge intentionally, and retry with that baseRevisionId.

Fields

Each skill owns the schema of fields for the caseType it creates. Keep fields small, typed, and stable enough for other agents to inspect.

Examples:

{
  "slug": "launch-announcement",
  "target_audience": "operators",
  "publish_url": "https://example.com/blog/launch-announcement"
}

Patch fields or status with:

PATCH /api/cases/:caseIdOrIdentifier
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "status": "in_review",
  "fields": {
    "slug": "launch-announcement",
    "target_audience": "operators",
    "publish_url": "https://example.com/blog/launch-announcement"
  }
}

Remember: fields replaces the whole object when present.

Issue Links

Link cases to issues explicitly when needed:

POST /api/cases/:caseIdOrIdentifier/links
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "issueId": "issue-uuid",
  "role": "reference"
}

Roles:

• origin: the issue/run that created the case
• work: an issue/run that changed the case
• reference: related issue context

Agent run writes auto-link the run's issue when Paperclip can resolve it from the run JWT or X-Paperclip-Run-Id. Creation/upsert writes use origin; later document, patch, and attachment writes use work when no link already exists. You do not need to manually link the current issue before writing the case.

Child Cases

Create child cases by setting parentCaseId to the parent case UUID.

{
  "caseType": "image_assets",
  "key": "launch-announcement:hero-images",
  "title": "Hero images for launch announcement",
  "parentCaseId": "parent-case-uuid",
  "fields": {
    "required_assets": ["hero", "social-card"]
  }
}

Use child cases when the output has independently inspectable pieces or when another agent can work on a bounded part without editing the parent case body.

Attachments

Attach generated files with multipart form data:

POST /api/cases/:caseIdOrIdentifier/attachments
Content-Type: multipart/form-data

file=@hero.png

The server records an asset and adds an attachment_added case event.

Lifecycle

Use the lifecycle consistently:

• draft: case exists but useful work has not started
• in_progress: an agent is actively producing or revising it
• in_review: ready for reviewer, board, or downstream approval
• approved: accepted but not finally shipped or archived
• done: complete and no further action remains
• cancelled: intentionally abandoned

Terminal statuses are done and cancelled; setting either records completedAt. Moving back to a non-terminal status clears completedAt.

Worked Blog Post Example

Create or upsert the parent blog post:

POST /api/companies/:companyId/cases
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "caseType": "blog_post",
  "key": "paperclip-cases-launch",
  "title": "Introducing Paperclip Cases",
  "summary": "Blog post explaining the cases surface for agent outputs.",
  "status": "in_progress",
  "fields": {
    "slug": "paperclip-cases-launch",
    "target_audience": "AI company operators",
    "publish_url": null
  }
}

Write the body:

PUT /api/cases/PAP-C42/documents/body
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "title": "Introducing Paperclip Cases",
  "format": "markdown",
  "body": "# Introducing Paperclip Cases\n\n..."
}

Create the child image-assets case:

POST /api/companies/:companyId/cases
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "caseType": "image_assets",
  "key": "paperclip-cases-launch:image-assets",
  "title": "Image assets for Introducing Paperclip Cases",
  "parentCaseId": "parent-case-uuid",
  "status": "in_progress",
  "fields": {
    "slug": "paperclip-cases-launch",
    "required_assets": ["hero", "social-card"],
    "publish_url": null
  }
}

Attach generated assets to the child, then patch both cases as they move through review:

PATCH /api/cases/PAP-C42
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "status": "in_review",
  "fields": {
    "slug": "paperclip-cases-launch",
    "target_audience": "AI company operators",
    "publish_url": "https://example.com/blog/paperclip-cases-launch"
  }
}

If the same skill retries the example with the same keys, it updates the parent and child cases rather than creating duplicates.