Migrating from the Legacy Endpoints

What actually changed

The field names are identical between the legacy flow and POST /api/v1/partner/cases/create/. What changed is the request shape: three separate calls (declare the case, upload each file, mark ready) collapse into one multipart request — a case JSON string plus repeated files and labels parts.

Before: the legacy 3-step flow

Three calls, in order. This example is a Policy Existence case (POST /policy_existence_searches/); the Policy Limit endpoint (POST /policy_limit_searches/) works the same way.

1. Declare the case. Same fields as the v2 case JSON below, plus the legacy-only files_to_upload list — this is how you declared, up front, which file labels you intended to upload:

curl -X POST https://api.redfolderresearch.com/policy_existence_searches/ \
  -H "Authorization: Token <your_token>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "is_test": true,
    "plaintiff_name": "Jane Smith",
    "date_of_loss": "2026-06-20",
    "base_product": ["personal_auto_policy_existence"],
    "search_reason": ["defendant_insurance_unknown"],
    "is_incident_report_provided": false,
    "is_user_agreeing_to_all_terms_and_conditions": true,
    "should_exclude_other_insurance_from_search": false,
    "cc_emails": "paralegal@lawfirm.com",
    "defendant_information": {
      "first_name": "John",
      "last_name": "Doe",
      "address": "123 Main St",
      "city": "Boise",
      "state_or_province": "ID",
      "postal_or_zip_code": "83702"
    },
    "files_to_upload": ["incident_report"]
  }'

import requests

case = {
    "is_test": True,
    "plaintiff_name": "Jane Smith",
    "date_of_loss": "2026-06-20",
    "base_product": ["personal_auto_policy_existence"],
    "search_reason": ["defendant_insurance_unknown"],
    "is_incident_report_provided": False,
    "is_user_agreeing_to_all_terms_and_conditions": True,
    "should_exclude_other_insurance_from_search": False,
    "cc_emails": "paralegal@lawfirm.com",
    "defendant_information": {
        "first_name": "John",
        "last_name": "Doe",
        "address": "123 Main St",
        "city": "Boise",
        "state_or_province": "ID",
        "postal_or_zip_code": "83702",
    },
    "files_to_upload": ["incident_report"],
}

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.redfolderresearch.com/policy_existence_searches/",
    headers={"Authorization": "Token <your_token>"},
    json=case,
)
ticket_id = response.json()["id"]

const casePayload = {
  is_test: true,
  plaintiff_name: "Jane Smith",
  date_of_loss: "2026-06-20",
  base_product: ["personal_auto_policy_existence"],
  search_reason: ["defendant_insurance_unknown"],
  is_incident_report_provided: false,
  is_user_agreeing_to_all_terms_and_conditions: true,
  should_exclude_other_insurance_from_search: false,
  cc_emails: "paralegal@lawfirm.com",
  defendant_information: {
    first_name: "John",
    last_name: "Doe",
    address: "123 Main St",
    city: "Boise",
    state_or_province: "ID",
    postal_or_zip_code: "83702",
  },
  files_to_upload: ["incident_report"],
};

const response = await fetch("https://api.redfolderresearch.com/policy_existence_searches/", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "Authorization": "Token <your_token>",
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify(casePayload),
});
const ticketId = (await response.json()).id;

The response includes the new ticket’s id — use it as {ticket_id} below.

2. Upload each declared file. One call per file, file_label must match an entry from files_to_upload:

curl -X POST https://api.redfolderresearch.com/upload/{ticket_id}/incident_report \
  -H "Authorization: Token <your_token>" \
  -F "file=@police_report.pdf"

with open("police_report.pdf", "rb") as file_handle:
    response = requests.post(
        f"https://api.redfolderresearch.com/upload/{ticket_id}/incident_report",
        headers={"Authorization": "Token <your_token>"},
        files={"file": file_handle},
    )

// fileBlob: a File (from an <input>) or Blob holding police_report.pdf
const form = new FormData();
form.append("file", fileBlob, "police_report.pdf");

const response = await fetch(`https://api.redfolderresearch.com/upload/${ticketId}/incident_report`, {
  method: "POST",
  headers: { "Authorization": "Token <your_token>" },
  body: form,
});

3. Mark the case ready. Fails with 400 if any declared label from step 1 was never uploaded:

curl -X PUT https://api.redfolderresearch.com/tickets/{ticket_id}/ready \
  -H "Authorization: Token <your_token>"

response = requests.put(
    f"https://api.redfolderresearch.com/tickets/{ticket_id}/ready",
    headers={"Authorization": "Token <your_token>"},
)

const response = await fetch(`https://api.redfolderresearch.com/tickets/${ticketId}/ready`, {
  method: "PUT",
  headers: { "Authorization": "Token <your_token>" },
});

After: one-shot create

The same case, in a single multipart request. The case field is a JSON-encoded string — the object below is shown decoded for readability; encode it with JSON.stringify() (JS) or json.dumps() (Python) before sending:

curl -X POST https://api.redfolderresearch.com/api/v1/partner/cases/create/ \
  -H "Authorization: Token <your_token>" \
  -F 'case={"case_type":"pe","is_test":true,"plaintiff_name":"Jane Smith","date_of_loss":"2026-06-20","base_product":["personal_auto_policy_existence"],"search_reason":["defendant_insurance_unknown"],"is_incident_report_provided":false,"is_user_agreeing_to_all_terms_and_conditions":true,"should_exclude_other_insurance_from_search":false,"cc_emails":"paralegal@lawfirm.com","defendant_information":{"first_name":"John","last_name":"Doe","address":"123 Main St","city":"Boise","state_or_province":"ID","postal_or_zip_code":"83702"}}' \
  -F "files=@police_report.pdf" \
  -F "labels=incident_report"

import json

import requests

case = {
    "case_type": "pe",
    "is_test": True,
    "plaintiff_name": "Jane Smith",
    "date_of_loss": "2026-06-20",
    "base_product": ["personal_auto_policy_existence"],
    "search_reason": ["defendant_insurance_unknown"],
    "is_incident_report_provided": False,
    "is_user_agreeing_to_all_terms_and_conditions": True,
    "should_exclude_other_insurance_from_search": False,
    "cc_emails": "paralegal@lawfirm.com",
    "defendant_information": {
        "first_name": "John",
        "last_name": "Doe",
        "address": "123 Main St",
        "city": "Boise",
        "state_or_province": "ID",
        "postal_or_zip_code": "83702",
    },
}

with open("police_report.pdf", "rb") as file_handle:
    response = requests.post(
        "https://api.redfolderresearch.com/api/v1/partner/cases/create/",
        headers={"Authorization": "Token <your_token>"},
        data={"case": json.dumps(case), "labels": "incident_report"},
        files=[("files", file_handle)],
    )

const casePayload = {
  case_type: "pe",
  is_test: true,
  plaintiff_name: "Jane Smith",
  date_of_loss: "2026-06-20",
  base_product: ["personal_auto_policy_existence"],
  search_reason: ["defendant_insurance_unknown"],
  is_incident_report_provided: false,
  is_user_agreeing_to_all_terms_and_conditions: true,
  should_exclude_other_insurance_from_search: false,
  cc_emails: "paralegal@lawfirm.com",
  defendant_information: {
    first_name: "John",
    last_name: "Doe",
    address: "123 Main St",
    city: "Boise",
    state_or_province: "ID",
    postal_or_zip_code: "83702",
  },
};

// fileBlob: a File (from an <input>) or Blob holding police_report.pdf
const form = new FormData();
form.append("case", JSON.stringify(casePayload));
form.append("files", fileBlob, "police_report.pdf");
form.append("labels", "incident_report");

const response = await fetch("https://api.redfolderresearch.com/api/v1/partner/cases/create/", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: { "Authorization": "Token <your_token>" },
  body: form,
});

One request, one 201 response — the case is created and the file is attached in the same round trip. No separate declare, upload, or ready step.

Field-by-field mapping

Legacy	v2 (`POST /api/v1/partner/cases/create/`)
`files_to_upload` (declared on the create body)	Removed. Attach files directly as `files` parts; give each a label via a matching `labels` entry (same order). No pre-declaration step.
Everything else	Same field name and semantics, now nested inside the `case` JSON string instead of being the top-level request body — see the Data Dictionary.

Gotchas

Issue	Cause	Solution
You send `files_to_upload` inside the `case` JSON out of habit and it doesn’t declare, block, or validate anything.	v2 pops `files_to_upload` off the case payload before validation and ignores it entirely — the file-declaration mechanism doesn’t exist on v2. The conditional rule that required it on the legacy endpoints (when `is_incident_report_provided` is true) is also removed for v2, since files are decoupled and best-effort.	Drop `files_to_upload` from the `case` JSON. Attach files directly as `files` parts with matching `labels` entries in the same request.
You’re waiting for a `400` like the legacy `ready` step’s “Missing file upload for declared file” and it never comes.	v2 has no `ready` step — there’s one call, so there’s one point where case-level `400`s can happen: validation of the `case` JSON at create time. File problems never fail the request; each file’s outcome (`accepted` or `rejected`) is reported per-file in the `201` response’s `attachments` array.	Validate required/conditional fields client-side against Conditional Requirements before submitting, and check `attachments[].status` in the response for file-level outcomes.
You assume you need new credentials or a different auth scheme for v2.	Nothing changed — v2 sits behind the same authentication as the legacy endpoints.	Keep sending the same `Authorization: Token <your_token>` header you already use.