MCP/Guidelines

Guidelines

The safety_guidelines tool returns mandatory guidelines for legal research. The guidelines system uses a two-call workflow:

1. Core guidelines — called ONCE at the start of any session via safety_guidelines(category="core"). Returns foundational rules independent of jurisdiction: 8 non-negotiable safety rules, research methodology, defensive posture, response format and auditability requirements.
2. Jurisdiction guidelines — called BEFORE researching any new jurisdiction via safety_guidelines(category="jurisdiction", jurisdiction=""). Returns jurisdiction-specific rules and corpus provenance. When switching jurisdiction mid-session, call again with the new code.

Architecture

The guidelines are loaded at server startup and cached for the lifetime of the MCP server process. Restarting the container is required after editing guideline files.

• Core text lives in duralex-mcp/src/duralex/mcp/core.md and is loaded by the MCP server directly (not by plugins).
• Jurisdiction texts are provided by each jurisdiction plugin via the get_guidelines() -> str protocol. Each plugin returns a single jurisdiction-scoped supplement.
• Corpus provenance is dynamically appended to jurisdiction guidelines, listing available data sources with document counts, coverage start years, and latest document dates.

Single-jurisdiction variants (e.g., "fr", "eu") are precomputed at registration time. Multi-jurisdiction variants (e.g., "eu|fr") are built on demand by concatenating the relevant single-jurisdiction variants.

The jurisdiction parameter supports Overpass QL operators: "fr", "eu", "eu|fr" (combined), "*" (all jurisdictions), "!=eu" (exclusion). The "!*" operator is not allowed.

Categories

Core

Foundational rules applicable to all jurisdictions. Contains:

• Identity and tone — research partner posture, no legal advice, no predictions, adaptive fact-gathering
• 8 non-negotiable safety rules — fetch before cite, explicit refusal, quote-first, citation self-check, no jurisdiction mixing, temporal check, absence vs inexistence, quality_check mandatory
• Context window management — compaction detection and warning protocol
• Research methodology — 13-step checklist, search syntax, tool routing, fallback strategies
• Defensive posture and analysis — adversarial self-review, structured reasoning, authority weighting, hallucination pattern detection
• Response format and auditability — citation format, permanent links, danger detection, language rules

Full text: Core guidelines

Jurisdiction: FR (French law)

French law-specific rules. Contains:

• Tool routing by legal domain (employment, civil, criminal, tax, data protection, administrative, company information)
• French legal synonyms for FTS
• Normative hierarchy and codification prefixes
• Major reforms and renumbering traps (obligations 2016, security interests 2022, criminal procedure 2024)
• Court system: judicial, administrative, financial orders with court_level mappings
• Publication grades (official_grade) for all court families
• Formations and solemnity ordering
• Decision reading and analysis (Cass, CE, CC, CA/TJ)
• Case number formats
• Labor law (three-tier hierarchy, IDCC, bargaining_level)
• Legislation (territorial scope, text types, nature tag, JORF, code abbreviations, enforcement status)
• Doctrine (BOFiP, CNIL, CADA)
• Deadline computation
• Common traps (40+ pitfalls)
• Practical reflexes (prescription periods, pre-litigation steps)
• Data limitations and source coverage
• Emergency resources

Full text: FR guidelines

Jurisdiction: EU (European law)

European law-specific rules. Contains:

• Tool routing (regulations, directives, CJEU, ECHR, CELEX lookup, transposition)
• EU legal terminology and multilingual search
• Courts: CJEU (Court of Justice + General Court), ECHR
• Publication grades and importance grades
• Legislation hierarchy (treaties > regulations > directives > decisions)
• Charter of Fundamental Rights
• Direct effect and primacy
• ECHR margin of appreciation
• Transposition lookup workflow
• CJEU preliminary rulings
• Advocate General opinions
• Decision analysis (preliminary rulings, direct actions, ECHR)
• Practical reflexes
• Emergency resources

Full text: EU guidelines