Retrieve a Case

Returns a single case — who has signed, what state it is in, whether the case emails arrived, and its signing links.

GET https://api.nextsign.dk/v3/api/cases/{id}

Authenticated with an API key — see Authorization.

Quickstart

curl https://api.nextsign.dk/v3/api/cases/65ab12cd34ef56ab78cd90b0 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $NEXTSIGN_API_KEY"

const response = await fetch(
  `https://api.nextsign.dk/v3/api/cases/${caseId}`,
  { headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.NEXTSIGN_API_KEY}` } },
);

const { case: found } = await response.json();
const signed = found.recipients.filter((r) => r.status === 'signed');

import os, requests

response = requests.get(
    f"https://api.nextsign.dk/v3/api/cases/{case_id}",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['NEXTSIGN_API_KEY']}"},
)

found = response.json()["case"]

The id is the id from the creation response. That response also returns a Location header pointing at this endpoint, so you can follow it directly.

Path Parameter

Query Parameters

Response

{
  "case": {
    "id": "65ab12cd34ef56ab78cd90b0",
    "referenceId": "Jrn. 2342-23",
    "title": "Lejeaftale",
    "state": "open",
    "language": "da",
    "createdAt": "2026-07-27T14:48:36.356Z",
    "expiresAt": "2026-08-10T14:48:36.356Z",
    "folder": { "id": "65ab12cd34ef56ab78cd90a2", "name": "Default" },
    "sender": {
      "id": "65ab12cd34ef56ab78cd90ef",
      "name": "Anna Beck",
      "email": "anna@example.com"
    },
    "activeGroup": 0,
    "recipients": [
      {
        "id": "65ab12cd34ef56ab78cd91a1",
        "uid": "4t5ZQbtB",
        "name": "Andreas Lauridsen",
        "email": "al@example.com",
        "phone": "",
        "position": "",
        "group": 0,
        "type": "email",
        "signing": true,
        "status": "pending",
        "needsCpr": false,
        "signingSchema": "",
        "emailStatus": {
          "status": "delivered",
          "bounceType": null,
          "sentAt": "2026-07-27T14:48:38.000Z",
          "deliveredAt": "2026-07-27T14:48:41.000Z",
          "openedAt": null,
          "bouncedAt": null,
          "updatedAt": "2026-07-27T14:48:41.000Z"
        },
        "signingUrl": "https://www.nextsign.dk/sign/65ab12cd34ef56ab78cd90b0/2/h6gKDYSiPyYTC5Bkq6urKfKKW"
      }
    ],
    "documents": [
      {
        "id": "65ab12cd34ef56ab78cd92c3",
        "name": "contract.pdf",
        "type": "application/pdf",
        "url": "https://nextsign-de.fsn1.your-objectstorage.com/65ab/contract.pdf",
        "signObligated": true,
        "documentMustBeRead": false,
        "signatories": []
      }
    ],
    "notices": []
  }
}

This is the same case object Create a Case returns, with one field missing: delivery, which reports the outcome of sending and therefore only exists on the response that did the sending.

This endpoint also reads back cases started in the dashboard, and those can be less filled in than one created here: a dashboard draft has no expiry until it is sent, so expiresAt can be null — and activeGroup is null whenever no group is currently being asked to sign, as on a draft.

notices is present and almost always empty — it mostly records what we filled in for you while creating a case. The one notice this endpoint can add is signing-urls-unavailable, when an open case's signing links could not be built; the case itself is still returned.

Signing links

recipients[].signingUrl is returned for cases in the open state. A draft has nothing to sign yet, so the field is absent rather than null.

Email status

recipients[].emailStatus tells you whether the case emails, meaning the invitation and any reminders, reached the recipient. It is null until our email provider has reported something, and it stays null for recipients we do not email (type sms or eboks).

"emailStatus": {
  "status": "bounced",
  "bounceType": "hard",
  "sentAt": "2026-07-27T14:48:38.000Z",
  "deliveredAt": null,
  "openedAt": null,
  "bouncedAt": "2026-07-27T14:48:40.000Z",
  "updatedAt": "2026-07-27T14:48:40.000Z"
}

Every reminder is a new email with its own events, so each timestamp is the most recent event of its kind, and null if there has not been one.

status is the first of these that applies:

1. bounced: the newest delivery outcome is a bounce. If a later reminder is delivered, the status moves on to delivered or opened, while bouncedAt keeps the time of the bounce. A reminder that bounces after an earlier delivery makes it bounced again: the address stopped working.
2. opened: an email was opened, or a link in it clicked.
3. delivered: an email was accepted by the recipient's mail server.
4. sent: an email was sent and nothing more has been reported yet.

A hard bounce means the address does not exist, or the receiving server refused it permanently. A soft bounce is a temporary problem, such as a full mailbox or an unavailable server, that did not clear while our provider kept retrying. In both cases that email is not going to arrive, and the recipient needs a corrected address or another channel.

If you change a recipient's email address after sending, events reported for the old address no longer count.

How fresh it is. Events are written to the case as soon as our email provider reports them, usually within seconds for sent and delivered. You do not need to poll for bounces: subscribe to the case.delivery.failed webhook, which fires for every bounced case email.

Document URLs

By default documents[].url is the document's stored address. It identifies the file and is stable, but it is protected — fetching it without credentials returns 403.

Pass ?publicUrls=true for a downloadable link, valid for one hour:

curl "https://api.nextsign.dk/v3/api/cases/65ab12cd34ef56ab78cd90b0?publicUrls=true" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $NEXTSIGN_API_KEY"

Ask for it on the request where you intend to download, rather than storing the result — an hour-old link has already expired, while the case id never does.

Documents you supplied as a url are returned exactly as you gave them, with or without this parameter. We store those by reference and never re-host them — which is also why their type is null, since we never fetched the bytes to inspect.

Errors

{ "error": "case-not-found" }

Reading never changes anything, so every request here is safe to retry. Full detail in Errors.

Related