uk-parliament-erskine-may

name	uk-parliament-erskine-may
title	Erskine May API
description	Search and retrieve Erskine May — *A Treatise on the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament*, the authoritative reference work on UK parliamentary procedure. Browse by Part, Chapter, Section, paragraph reference (e.g. "20.5") or index term, or full-text search across the whole work. Use when the question is about parliamentary procedure, precedent, the rules governing debate, motions, divisions, privilege, or anything else covered in Erskine May.
author	danbri
author_url	https://github.com/danbri/forgetmenot/tree/main/skills/erskine-may
license	CC0-1.0
version	0.1.0
execution_mode	open
jurisdiction	gb
practice	general
language	en

Erskine May API

Base URL: https://erskinemay-api.parliament.uk/api

OpenAPI 3 spec: https://erskinemay-api.parliament.uk/swagger/v1/swagger.json (cached at _specs/erskinemay.json).

What it covers

The full, current 25th edition of Erskine May (Parliament's authoritative procedure manual) as a structured tree:

• Parts — the top-level divisions (e.g. "Privilege").
• Chapters — numbered chapters within each part.
• Sections — sub-chapter sections; each section has step navigation.
• Paragraphs — individual numbered paragraphs (the smallest cited unit, e.g. "20.5").
• Index terms — the back-of-book index, browseable A–Z and searchable.

Common entry points

Use case	Endpoint
List all Parts	GET /Part
One Part	GET /Part/{partNumber}
One Chapter	GET /Chapter/{chapterNumber}
One Section	GET /Section/{sectionId}
Section navigation step	GET /Section/{sectionId},{step} (e.g. /Section/12345,next)
Paragraph by reference	GET /Search/Paragraph/{reference} (e.g. 20.5)
Full-text search of paragraphs	GET /Search/ParagraphSearchResults/{searchTerm}
Full-text search of sections	GET /Search/SectionSearchResults/{searchTerm}
Browse index A–Z	GET /IndexTerm/browse?startLetter=A
One index term	GET /IndexTerm/{indexTermId}
Full-text search of index	GET /Search/IndexTermSearchResults/{searchTerm}

Worked example

# Find paragraphs about "casting vote"
curl -s 'https://erskinemay-api.parliament.uk/api/Search/ParagraphSearchResults/casting%20vote' \
  | jq 


curl -s