Composing queries
The Research home is one screen with four parts stacked down it: a heading with its own actions, a step trail and file band, the composer with its three modes, and your recent runs. This page names every control on it.
The composer and its rail
The two option chips sit on the left of the rail, the Settings chip on the right, and Start research at the end of it.
The heading
The heading reads What would you like to research today? over the subtitle Answers grounded in your documents and trusted sources. Three controls sit at the right of that row.
| Control | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Watch demo | Right of the subtitle | Plays the Research walkthrough in a modal, without leaving the screen |
| Take tour | Between the other two | Walks you through the live controls on this screen. Appears only where a tour exists |
| View guide | Right-hand end | Opens this documentation in a new tab |
The step trail
Under the heading, a read-only trail states where the run stands.
| Step | State | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Add documents | Ticks to Documents added once you select a file | Tagged Optional. It stays optional for Ask Judicio, and is required by the two card flows |
| Ask your question | The current step | |
| Review and run | Upcoming |
Your active jurisdiction sits flush right on the same row, as a flag and a country name. It is a statement, not a control. The only jurisdiction control is the switcher in the top bar. See Jurisdictions.
The file band
The band under the trail is the one place this screen asks for documents. It has two states.
| State | What you see | Buttons |
|---|---|---|
| Empty | Research runs without documents over Add them to ground the answer in your own material. | Choose files, Upload |
| Filled | The file count, the page total when every file has one, and one chip per document | Add more, Clear all |
Choose files reveals the Files panel on its Files tab. Upload reveals the same panel on its Upload tab. Neither opens a picker of its own, so your selection is the same selection the rest of the workspace sees.
Each chip carries the file name, its page count where known, and a remove control. Beyond six documents the extra chips fold into a +2 more control that reopens the Files panel. The selection itself is never trimmed, only the row of chips.
Research accepts 10 files. Within two of that limit the band adds a 9 of 10 readout, and past it the readout says how many to remove before you can continue.
The three modes
Three tabs sit above the composer, each with a caption that reacts to what you have selected.
| Mode | Caption | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| Ask Judicio | Ask anything, or select a file to analyse | The free-text composer. The only flow that runs with no documents |
| Smart Suggestions | Add documents to get suggestions with nothing selected, or a count of documents ready to work from | Cards Judicio proposes from the documents you picked |
| Templates | Browse research templates | Your saved setups, Judicio's, and any shared with you |
The composer
| Control | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Question box | The body of the Ask Judicio panel | Placeholder Ask anything, or select a file to analyse. Grows as you type |
| Microphone | Left of the submit control | Dictates into the box, appending to what is already there |
| Start research | Right of the rail | Submits. Reads Starting while the request is in flight |
| Disabled arrow | Same position, while the box is empty | The placeholder for the submit button. It cannot be pressed, so a blank or whitespace-only question can never be sent |
A question is capped at 5,000 characters. The follow-up composer inside a session enforces the same cap in the box, with a counter that appears from 4,600 characters and pasting clamped to the limit.
Submitting opens the session immediately. There is no separate confirmation or estimate step, so set the jurisdiction, the chips and the Settings before you send.
The option chips
Two chips sit on the left of the composer rail. Both change what the run does, which is why they are here rather than in Settings.
| Chip | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Drafting | Off | Tells the run to produce a document as well as an answer. See Working with drafts |
| Deep Mode | Off | A more thorough analysis. Its tooltip reads More thorough analysis. Best for complex or lengthy legal documents. Uses more credits. |
Deep Mode is a Professional and Organization feature. On the Starter plan the chip still renders, so you can see it, but it is disabled with the tooltip Premium models are available on Professional and above. Upgrade to unlock Deep Mode. and an Upgrade link beside it.
A Files chip exists on the follow-up composer inside a session, where it toggles the Files panel and carries the count, for example Files (3). The home has no Files chip: the band above the composer already shows the selection.
The Settings ribbon
The Settings chip holds the right of the composer rail and carries its own values, for example Settings: Formal · English · Balanced. A small count beside them says how many settings differ from their defaults. Selecting the chip opens a band below the composer, not a pop-up.
| Cell | Kind | Values |
|---|---|---|
| Jurisdiction | Read-only stamp | The active jurisdiction, or None: general scope |
| Tone | Pills | Formal, Concise, Conversational, Academic, Advisory |
| Response language | Grid | 116 languages, grouped under Suggested, your jurisdiction's languages, and All languages, plus Auto (follow conversation) at the head of the list |
| Length | Pills | Concise, Balanced, Detailed |
| Repositories | Browser | Which courts, tribunals and regulators may be searched. Shown for India and the United States only |
Tone defaults to Formal, Length to Balanced, and Response language to Auto (follow conversation), which answers in the language you asked in. The language cell carries the note Applies to prose. Citations stay verbatim.
These are your settings, not the run's. The band says as much in its footer: Saved to your settings, not to this run. Every pick is saved to your profile the moment you make it, and applies to the next run you start anywhere.
While your saved settings are still loading, every editor in the band is inert and the strip says so. That is deliberate: a pick made before your real values arrive would save a default over them. If the load fails, the band offers a retry.
Repositories
The Repositories cell decides what a run is allowed to find. It appears when your active jurisdiction is India or the United States, the two catalogues Judicio ships a browser for. Elsewhere there is nothing to scope and the cell is absent.
The cell has three parts.
| Part | What it is |
|---|---|
| Scope presets | A row of pills naming whole scopes. For India: Everything, Courts only, Tribunals only, Statute and rules. For the United States: Everything, Federal courts, State courts |
| Scope summary | Shown only when your selection matches no preset. It names the categories in scope and counts them, then offers Reset to Everything |
| The browser | The full list of bodies, always expanded, with a checkbox each |
Everything is the default, and stays the default: narrowing a legal search costs recall quietly, so it has to be deliberate.
The browser carries two controls of its own.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Search box | Placeholder Search High Courts, tribunals, regulators…. Filters the list as you type, across category names, body names and the individual High Courts |
| Show bodies no longer sitting | Reveals the No longer sitting category. Off by default |
Bodies are grouped by category, and a category checkbox is three-state: ticked, unticked or part-ticked. All High Courts folds open into its individual courts, so you can search one bench without searching the rest. A High Court that is not carried by the case-law index is marked Not in Indian Kanoon, which tells you the run will reach it through its own website rather than through that corpus.
For India the live categories are Supreme Court, High Courts, District and commercial courts, Appellate tribunals, Tribunals and commissions, Financial and market regulators, Sector regulators, Tax and corporate authorities, and Legislation and official record. No longer sitting holds the bodies that have been wound up. For the United States they are Federal courts and State courts.
Your selection is stored against your profile, and the browser says so: Saved to your preferences and applied to every new research run. Historical bodies stay off unless included. Their past orders remain citable.
The two catalogues keep separate scopes. Narrowing the United States does not disturb a scope you saved for India.
A follow-up inside a session inherits the scope the session started with. The picker lives on the home because that is where a run is scoped.
The examples block
Above the composer sits a collapsible block of starter questions. Selecting one puts it in the composer, where you can edit it before sending.
| State | Heading | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| No documents selected | A heading for your jurisdiction, with the caption These don't need files. Add documents to tailor examples to your matter. | Three general starters for that jurisdiction |
| Documents selected | Suggested from your documents, with the caption Example queries based on your selected documents | Three questions generated from what you picked, plus a Regenerate button |
While they generate, the block reads Generating examples from your files…. If generation fails it says Could not generate examples. Try again. and offers Try again.
Starting from a card
Smart Suggestions and Templates both render a grid of cards. Both need at least one document selected: without one, the start button on an open card is disabled and its tooltip reads Add at least one document to start.
| Control | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Section header | Top of the grid | Start from a suggestion or Start from a template, with the card count |
| Regenerate all | Header, Suggestions only | Rebuilds every AI card from your current document selection |
| Create template | Header, plus icon | Opens the Templates hub ready to create a research template |
| Manage templates | Header, gear icon | Opens the Templates hub filtered to research |
| Category pills | Above the grid, Templates only | My templates, Judicio templates, Shared with me |
| Page controls | Below the grid | Previous and next, with a range readout |
Selecting a card opens a reveal panel below its row, with a notch pointing at the card it belongs to. The panel is where the run is actually configured.
| Control | On which card | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Back | Both | Closes the panel |
| Item list | Both | The focus areas the run will cover, each numbered |
| Item checkboxes | AI cards | Choose which focus areas to include. The count above reads as a selected-of-total |
| Edit and delete on a row | AI cards | Change or drop one focus area for this run |
| Add focus area | AI cards | Adds one of your own |
| Regenerate | AI cards | Rebuilds this card's focus areas. Local edits are dropped |
| Save as template | AI cards | Saves the checked focus areas as a reusable template |
| Edit template | Saved templates | Opens that template in the Templates hub |
| Deep Mode | Both | The same per-run toggle as the composer rail |
| Start research | Both | Starts the run |
A saved template's focus areas are read only here. The panel says so: it uses every focus area in the template, and to change what is included you edit the template itself. See Research templates.
Recent activity
At the foot of the home, Recent activity lists your five most recent runs, grouped under Today, Yesterday and Earlier. Each row shows the run's title, its document count, its jurisdiction badge and its status, and a row shared with you also says who shared it. Selecting a row opens it. Selecting View all opens the full history, covered in Understanding results.
Writing a question that works
The composer is built for plain language, not Boolean syntax. You do not need AND, OR, NOT or field codes.
- State the issue, not the keywords. "Is a two-year non-compete on a departing sales director enforceable" beats "non-compete enforceability".
- Give the facts that change the answer. Role, duration, geography, consideration, the year. Judicio will otherwise ask you for them, which costs you a round trip.
- Say what you want back. "Set out the test and the leading authorities" and "Give me the counter-argument" produce different answers to the same question.
- Put the long context in a file, not the question. Add the contract or the pleadings to the file band rather than pasting them in. That is what grounding is for.
- Ask one thing at a time. A question with three limbs gets a shallower answer to each. Ask the first, then follow up.
- Set the jurisdiction before you send. The run is stamped with the top-bar jurisdiction at the moment you submit, and every follow-up in the session continues under it.
Narrow after the fact rather than up front. Ask broadly, read what comes back, then use a follow-up to focus: follow-ups cost half an opening question, and they keep the session's material rather than searching from scratch.
Next steps
- Read the answer, and check its sources, in Understanding results.
- Change what the run may search in Jurisdictions.
- Save a setup you repeat in Research templates.